


E=MC(squared)

by Man Over Bot (Manniness)



Series: Necessary Sacrifice [6]
Category: Almost Human (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, arrests are made, good guys win
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 60,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/Man%20Over%20Bot
Summary: In his final hours as acting captain of Delta Division, John puts it all on the line in order to catch the people targeting DRNs.  Now trapped in the limelight and hounded by the media, John has to smile and wave while the rest of the team digs in and digs deep.  All they need is one solid lead.  Before it’s too late.(Continuation of “The Speed of Enlightenment”)
Relationships: Dorian/John Kennex
Series: Necessary Sacrifice [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1120896
Comments: 72
Kudos: 23





	1. News Recap

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are at the final installment of “Necessary Sacrifices.” Rather than try to mash all this into the last few chapters of “The Speed of Enlightenment,” I decided to write the coming events as an unplanned Part 6. If you enjoy the story, I hope you will take a minute to leave a comment and let me know. (^_~)
> 
> My inspirational fanvid playlist:
> 
> Morose:  
> Almost Human - Echo [John & Dorian] (posted by xShadowinTimex) https://youtu.be/CYclX-bAU8A
> 
> Malcontent:  
> Almost Human -- Demons (posted by Nothing Puck) https://youtu.be/Yte3zE7BRPg
> 
> Delightful:  
> John/Dorian | What We Live For (posted by ORiley42) https://youtu.be/ysS-LWQBbWQ
> 
> How John's crush (on Val) turned into something real (with Dorian):  
> [Almost Human] Jorian-Robots In Love (posted by Joe Jojo) https://youtu.be/a6aiebj_CY4
> 
> Sexy!  
> VID: Gone Tech (posted by blithesea) https://archiveofourown.org/works/3354407

**_“I’m here personally because I believe in equal rights for DRNs. I believe in Dorian.”_ **

John frowned as Captain Maldonado paused the recorded video with the conference room remote. “Hey,” he protested. “This is the best part.”

Val squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her fingers against her temple in a slow massage.

Paul sputtered out a chuckle. “Yeah, watching you smooch a DRN sure made my day.”

John smirked. “I’ll just bet it did.”

“John,” the captain said, tone void of inflection, “I do not know what to do with you.”

One thing they could all bet on: Captain Maldonado had not thought she’d be starting her first day back after a nice, long, two-week vacation like this.

John looked over at Dorian. When Dorian didn’t say “I told you so,” John smiled.

“You think you’re cute, John?” Sandra demanded.

Cute? Hell, yeah. But he knew better than to sass Captain Maldonado while he was up to his ass in a mess he’d made himself. “Well, I’m pretty sure Dorian and I have the complete attention of the city right now, which was what we were going for.”

With a disbelieving grin, Paul challenged, “Seriously? You make a stink and now you want us to give you a round of applause?”

“What we want is your attention. So suck it up and focus, Paul.” John reached over and tapped the console on the table, cuing the glass walls to fog and the room’s recording devices to go offline. “D, let’s take a look at those used and refurbished DRN chargers.”

The news footage vanished from the monitors. In its place, several browser windows opened in a cascade. The three tech companies that John had found plus two more. All with used DRN chargers listed for sale. All with exorbitant -- extortionate -- price tags.

Captain Maldonado jerked back from the screen, but it was Val who said, “This is intentional. No way does demand exceed supply by this margin.”

“I agree,” John said. “But I’ll need a warrant to look beyond the public information on these companies.”

“A warrant.” Paul was scowling in thought now. “You think they’re all connected.”

Dorian pulled up the registered owners of the start-ups and floundering tech developers. “There are no official records of acquisition or sale, and only two companies have posted any recent information aimed at potential investors. One mentions a loan of significant size.”

“We think there could be more,” John explained. “All from the same backer or from backers who are coordinating.”

“We’re talking about a monopoly,” Maldonado assumed.

“No, Captain. We’re talking about a conspiracy.” Dorian glanced at John who gestured for him to go ahead.

“Rudy has been keeping an eye on the situation, and he offered to design a new, affordable DRN charger. The first batch of six was completed and delivered last week, just before Goku, James, and Forney arrived in the city, at which time they, along with Russell from the Lorenzo Shaw case, were all given a clean bill of health.”

Those results blinked onto the screen. Not so much so that the humans in the room could admire them, but to prove that documentation really existed.

Dorian then pulled up the blueprints that Rudy had submitted to the manufacturer. “The designs are very good. This is a machine I would have felt no hesitation using myself. Rudy even put them through a panel of tests to be sure they were operating as intended.”

A new window opened on the monitor. A spreadsheet of techno babble shorthand with two columns of numerical values -- optimal and measured -- followed by a ratio. The final verdict was given in the fifth column: everything had come back within an acceptable range.

“We have data similar to this on all six chargers, but it was discovered last night that something has been systematically overheating the DRNs’ hardware components. Forney, Goku, and Russell have suffered extensive electrical damage. James also shows signs of the same, but to a lesser degree. As James has only used these particular chargers once, and the other DRNs have been utilizing them daily, we hypothesize that the chargers have been causing the damage.”

John deduced, “But there’s no reason for that to be happening unless they’ve been tampered with.”

“The manufacturer,” Dorian concluded, “is the most viable suspect.”

“Where are the chargers now?” Paul asked and Val filled him in: “Destroyed. Last night. The structure they’d been set up in burned to the ground.” She looked from Dorian to John. “I’ve been in touch with the fire investigator. There’s nothing left.”

“Any accelerants?” A lead was all they needed to build their case for warrants.

“Nothing detected. In their effort to prevent the fire from spreading to the other houses, the firefighters were pretty thorough.”

John said to Dorian, “We should get you back out there. See what you pick up.” Now that the usual avenues of evidence collection had done diddly squat, there was nothing to lose by bringing Dorian in to consult.

Captain Maldonado interrupted before the action plan could gain too much speed: “All this happened last night. Was the fire set before or after the altercation near Dorian’s apartment?”

“After I gave my statement to the responding officer,” John bit out, “who logged the report of the mugging near Dorian’s building.”

Paul hissed, leaning back in his chair. “Damn it.”

“Yeah,” Val concurred unhappily.

“OK,” the captain said, “so we keep a lid on this. Dorian, you and Officer Hernandez will canvas Miss Rubin’s neighborhood -- I know that was taken care of last night, but there are a few residents who weren’t home. You’ll follow up and find an excuse to walk through the site. See if you detect any accelerants that the fire investigator missed.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Valerie, see what you can find out about the manufacturer. We’ll need dossiers on the owners of these tech resellers as well.”

“I’m on it.”

“John, you made the media mess. You deal with it.”

John put out a hand, not to argue but to point out: “With Dorian and I getting all the attention, Goku and Forney are going to be the next likely targets of opportunity. We’ve got to figure that whoever’s behind this knows the clock is ticking. We haven’t released any information on the sabotaged chargers or the damage they’ve caused, but it’s kinda hard to miss. Rudy’s going to keep James and Russell out of sight and off the grid for a bit, but we haven’t seen the end of this.” Looking toward Paul, John suggested, “I was thinking some surveillance. Goku works at Mid City Floral. Samantha Rubin is going to be toting Forney around for more show-and-tell.”

Paul didn’t argue. In fact, the gleam in his eyes was all business. “Where are the androids staying?”

“At my place,” Dorian said.

The captain nodded. “Then we know that’s covered.”

Indeed they did. When John and Dorian had given the two despondent and furious androids a ride back to Dorian’s apartment, John had wondered aloud, “How do we know nobody’s been messing with your charger, D?”

Dorian had smiled. “The captain’s housewarming present. A home security system.”

“Yeah? A good one?”

“One of the best.”

Dorian had shown it to John, as well as Forney and Goku so that they’d both feel safe enough to power down and charge up. The charger itself had only been turned on once. According to its activity logs, no one had so much as bumped it.

“All this is well and good,” Captain Maldonado continued, “but we need to anticipate their next move.”

Dorian volunteered, “John says it could be aimed at turning public opinion against DRNs.”

Val nodded. Her tone was slow and thoughtful. “That makes sense. If they can’t take advantage of past DRN history to make people think the DRNs are susceptible to malfunction -- I assume that’s what the charger sabotage was supposed to do -- then the next move is either to get the city to call for deactivation or for the DRNs to choose to leave.”

“But we have rights here,” Dorian insisted.

“And chargers,” John added, “that actually work the way they’re supposed to.” But of the handful of those, too many were property of the police department. The two chargers that Rudy had paid for out of his own pocket would only accommodate a total of eight androids **_if_ ** at least two of them worked the graveyard shift. 

“But seriously,” Paul said, “letting the DRNs go wherever they want -- that’s not a win.”

“Not for people who have the kind of resources we’re talking about,” the captain agreed and then spelled it out because Paul was suddenly looking confused… or constipated: “Wealth, influence, connections--”

“Chromes,” Valerie sighed. “The odds are we’re talking about Chromes.”

Paul huffed. “Why would the Chrome community target DRNs?”

“This isn’t a new development. It’s been going on for a while. In fact, part of the reason why the DRNs were decommissioned so quickly was because other android technologies were on the rise.” Valerie shrugged with disappointment. “Chromes are just as interested in private bots as anyone, but they’ve got pockets deep enough to motivate tech developers to cater to them specifically. A lot of DRN tech found its way into the next generation of androids after the DRNs were no longer exclusively for police use. That’s not a coincidence. A lot of people have a lot of money tied up in this.”

Of all the greedy, grasping, dickish--! John could not form coherent thought beyond that. Just, had the Luger test been worse than ineffective? Could it have been used to select optimal candidates from the DRN line, culling them for reverse engineering?

John was too furious to move let alone speak.

Dorian realized, “And now that DRNs are legally classified as people, they fear that other androids based on our programming could be next.”

“Right.”

“Lorenzo Shaw was just the opening act,” John growled.

“But we’ve got at least one thing going for us, right? The Chrome community can’t fight two wars at once: DRNs and the Wall.”

“Paul, I don’t think you grasp just how much money Chromes have at their disposal.” Val almost sounded pitying, but John wasn’t ready to just plop down in a corner and feel sorry for himself.

He tried to stay positive: “This might be something we can work with, though. The Chromes are going to underestimate us because they think we’re underestimating them.”

“Careful steps, people,” Maldonado directed.

“Yeah, but we still don’t know what they’re going to try next,” Paul griped.

“Which is why,” Valerie sighed out, “I should accept one or two of the invitations I was sent recently. To Chrome clubs.”

Maldonado squinted in doubt. “You’ve made your position pretty clear.”

“I have, but the arrogance -- they all think I’ll fall back into the fold eventually.”

“What, so… they get on your case about slumming with the police?”

“Yeah, Paul. Pretty much.” To everyone, she said, “It’s been years since I’ve been to one of these. Ever since I realized they have no respect for me. Only for what I can do for them.”

“What can you do for them?” Blunt. But that was Sandra Maldonado’s trademark.

“I certainly won’t give them sensitive information. And I won’t look the other way on an infraction.”

“So what does that leave?” Paul. Man did the guy love to bitch and moan instead of using his head.

John said, “An introduction. Whatever scheme they’re working on, there’s no way they’re going to get their own hands dirty. They probably thought they’d have more time to get their ducks in a row, but the assault last night has pushed up the timeline. Putting out a contract is too risky. Traceable. But a recommendation from a detective who can access department files on past arrests without suspicion…” John shrugged, point made.

For a long moment, no one said anything. Val was probably bracing herself for the daunting task of heading back into her own worst nightmare. Dorian was probably feeling guilty about it. Maldonado was probably figuring out how to spin this little operation for her supervisors, who might just answer to Chromes. Paul was probably zoning out or thinking about sexbots. And John was circling back around, sniffing for loopholes. Had they missed anything? Anything at all?

“It’s a start,” Maldonado proclaimed and then delegated tasks, “Richard, figure out our surveillance options. Don’t write it up. Bring it to me and I’ll take care of it.”

“Right.”

“Valerie, do what you’ve got to do. Any logistics you need, let me know. Get us the tech company dossiers in the meantime.”

“OK.”

“Dorian, you and Officer Hernandez meet me in my office as soon as you can.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“John, a word.”

Oh, boy. The best for last.

Paul and Val left, already focused on what-comes-next. Dorian hesitated and John gave him a brave smile. With a subtle nod, Dorian turned and pushed his way out the door.

Sandra waited for it to settle back and seal in place before she took the seat kitty-corner from John’s and said, “I’m not going to ask when all this started between you and Dorian, but you’d better have an answer ready because that will be the first question on everyone’s lips.”

Yeah, John had kinda figured.

“Is Dorian coercing you into this relationship?”

“Whoa--what! Sandra--”

“I’m your boss, John, and your friend. I know how much you want to be out there.” She nodded toward the closed door, the bullpen, the atrium, and the city streets beyond. “I’ll be the first one to admit asking you to work with an MX on your first day back was pushing too hard. Your only other choice was Dorian. I need to know if--”

“No. No, there’s no coercion. Not then or since. If anything it was Dorian who didn’t have a choice that day.” And not just no choice in whether or not he could work with John, but whether or not he wanted to be woken up again. Whether or not he wanted to be a cop again. Nobody had ever asked Dorian. Like pretentious assholes, they’d all assumed.

John continued, “Dorian has always been clear on exactly what he’s comfortable with. Both on the job and off. But life’s not fair.” Especially for DRNs.

The captain nodded. “You’ve tried to compensate for that. But Dorian’s not city property anymore. You gotta back off.”

“Yeah. I’m trying. It’s harder than I’d thought it would be.”

“So was it your idea or Dorian’s to come out on live television?”

“Mine, but I asked him. I didn’t order him.”

Captain Maldonado studied John for a long moment. “OK. You’re on full duty today. Get yourself an MX and watch your back.”

John huffed, half with relief and half with irritation, because everything had changed, and nothing had changed. God damn it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Generally speaking, it is not ever a good idea for a person to be in an intimate, personal relationship with someone in their direct chain of command. So John’s walking a very fine line here. Sandra is trying to take care of both John and Dorian now that she officially “knows” that they’re in a relationship. Up until now, she could deny all knowledge of increasing intimacy between them (and thus leave them be).
> 
> I’ve always always always wanted more on Valerie’s past and the Chrome community and all those tensions that are hinted at in the TV show. I’m super excited to have a chance to explore that a bit here (even as limited by John’s POV as it is). In episode “Beholder,” Val tells Sandra, “They (i.e., Chromes) may not respect what I’ve done with my life, but they sure respect what I can do for theirs.”


	2. Hitting the Streets

“Way to take one for the team, Kennex,” Paul jeered, cornering him at the android assignment station.

John continued punching in his badge number and shift times on the holo keypad. “Yeah, but dealing with MXs is department policy these days. Too bad yours doesn’t get compensated for dealing with you.”

“Is that what this is? Compensation? You’re saving Dorian’s ass because he’s saved yours?”

Jamming the enter button way harder than necessary on the touch screen, John returned fire: “This isn’t the first time you’ve gone on about my ass. I’m getting concerned.”

“Good thing you’re not hearing it from a DRN, or you’d be getting all excited.”

Paul walked away, but John had the last word. He grumbled, “Thinking about breaking your nose is getting me kind of excited.”

The only person who heard John was John, but that was fine and still totally counted.

“Detective Kennex,” an MX said from directly behind him. “I am Unit 1127. I have been assigned to work with you during your shift today.”

“Great. Wonderful. Let’s go.”

They answered a request for backup at a nearby domestic disturbance which turned out to revolve around the family pets -- two neighbors and two high-strung animals -- and once the dogs had gotten into it, their owners had piled on. That was one for the scrapbook.

Next, there was a missing child, last seen in his preschool playground. With a wide-sweeping scan, the MX found him curled up in a dry culvert across the road, taking a nap.

“Hey, um, weren’t you on the news this morning?” the playground monitor asked once all the fuss had died down and she realized she’d probably be able to keep her job.

John sighed.

Taking that for a yes, she smiled. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Detective Kennex, we’ve received a report of shots fired.”

“Duty calls,” John declared and hoped this would be a case requiring actual investigation. Something, anything.

“It’s pretty cut-and-dry,” the first officer on the scene said. He was a patrolman who walked this beat just about every day. “I mean, bail bondsmen aren’t the type to get pushed over.”

No, they weren’t. Add in one disgruntled customer with a Molotov cocktail and things could turn ugly. They certainly had here. There was blood and paint thinner and broken glass on the grungy floor. Video footage to support the bail bondsman’s account. The unhappy customer would either be dead shortly or even more unhappy to wake up to a couple of missing fingers and a bullet wound in the gut.

It turned out that the bail bondsman was a decent marksman.

John got the report wrapped up and sent off remotely and then stepped out of the shop--

\--and into a swarm of media drones. The news people and paparazzi attached to them weren’t far behind. Oh, great. It was already starting. And he’d so been hoping he wouldn’t have to eat a lunch of power bars in the cruiser while hunkered down below a graffiti-ed highway underpass, too.

“Detective Kennex! When are you and Officer Dorian getting married? Have you set a date?”

“Detective Kennex! Were you and Officer Dorian involved sexually before the state court ruling?”

“Detective Kennex! How do you answer the accusation that your relationship with Officer Dorian is a tactic by the police department to undermine the 494 Movement?”

Oh, God. John did not have time for this nonsense. Or the patience. Or, quite frankly, the good will toward his fellow man. So he dug deep (really, really deep) and tried to look happy at the city’s interest in his private life.

Sure, this had been part of the big 7:30 Plan. Stil, John didn’t have to be thrilled with it actually working.

“I can’t answer many questions now -- I’m on the clock -- but no, we haven’t set a date. As for timing, the state court ruling changed everything, and if the department has any interest in the 494 Movement, then I must be the last to know. That’s all I can say at this time. Have a good day. Drive safe.”

John moved with purpose toward the cruiser and, as the throng closed in, shouting a new wave of questions, the MX boomed, “Please step back and allow the police officer to perform his duties. Thank you for your cooperation.”

And that was how John made it to the safety of the car and slid behind the wheel without shooting anyone. Wow.

“MX, good job with the crowd,” John commented, merging onto the highway. He needed to drive fast and he needed to do it now. Fight or flight.

“News personnel are not permitted to interfere with official police operations.”

In other words, after quitting time, John was all on his own. So what else was new.

But the impromptu service poked at John’s memory, reminding him of another spontaneous MX action that he still had questions about.

“MX,” John began, curling his hands tighter around the steering wheel. “Can you access the data sent in or shared by the unit that was assigned to Sergeant Truelove on April 27 of this year?”

“Affirmative. MX-43 Unit 610 was assigned to Sergeant Truelove on April 27th.”

“It was assigned only to Sergeant Truelove?”

“That is correct.”

“Did Unit 610 accompany Sergeant Truelove and Officer Dorian inside the abandoned printing press on Welburn Street at approximately 1400 hours on that date?” Given the wiggle room that the city council had given their MX when ordering it to interface with Dorian, John suspected he’d regret it big time if he wasn’t specific.

“Yes.”

OK, so far so good. “Did Unit 610 act to save both Officer Dorian and Sergeant Truelove?”

“That is consistent with department data provided by Officer Dorian-0167.”

“Can you…” John circled a hand through the air. “…tell me why 610 assisted both of them and not just Sergeant Truelove?”

The MX was silent. One minute stretched into two. John glanced over and glimpsed a flurry of red processing lights on the thing’s cheek. Well, whaddaya know. That was how you got the damn things to shut up.

John waited for ten minutes before he said, “MX, you making any progress?”

“Negative. The data provided by Unit 610 is insufficient to address your inquiry.”

“OK, then. Discontinue query. Here’s a new one: run a simulation. You--” John glanced down at the unit number on its uniform. “--Unit 1127, have been assigned to me. In the simulation, Officer Dorian and I answer a call. The three of us enter the premises of suspicious activity. There are no suspects or civilians in the building. While conducting our search, the roof falls in. What is your first priority?”

“I would protect you, my assigned partner.”

“Would you make any attempt to protect Officer Dorian?”

A slight pause. “Yes. Officer Dorian is a police officer. The primary function of the MX-43 line is to protect police officers.”

“Uh huh. That’s the only possible reason?”

“Officer Dorian is a DRN with a load-bearing capacity exceeding my own. He would be better equipped to assist you in the event of a building collapse.”

Ah, right. So no warm and fuzzy feelings there. Perfect logic. All systems nominal.

“Have I satisfactorily addressed your query, Detective Kennex?”

Six months ago -- hell, six weeks ago -- John would have said yeah. But now, his eyes narrowed. “Satisfactorily?”

“Do you have additional questions, Detective?”

No. “Yes. If I said I wasn’t satisfied with your answer, how would you respond?”

“I would ask you to reframe the parameters of your inquiry.”

Ah, so the MX wouldn’t try to feed John a line just to make him happy. The budding suspicion in the back of John’s mind folded back up and tucked itself away. “I’m satisfied with your response.”

“Understood.”

Silence settled back in the cruiser. A tetchy, spiny sort of silence. Riding with an MX was like being surrounded by cacti.

Which was maybe a good thing considering the media drones that rapidly descended and hovered above the location of their next call. Behind a greasy, old Vietnamese takeout place, a dumpster had been dropped onto the tram track. A dumpster with a body inside.

The MX tried to solve the case for him: “I’m detecting enough alcohol in the remaining tissue to posit this man died from ingesting lethal quantities of liquor.”

“Copy that,” John said, pulling on a pair of crime scene gloves and carefully crouching among the scattered detritus spilling out of the dumpster. He needed his penlight to tell the difference between dumpster sludge and the corpse. God, the stench was hideous. This bin was one of those organic matter deals. The contents of which were inevitably bound for the Ag Zone for processing and composting. Jesus. The smell alone would kill any plant John could think of. And he really didn’t want to ride around in the cruiser all day with this as his cologne du jour.

After a quick sweep of the interior for weapons or personal effects or anything of interest (or, hell, anything he could identify), John ducked back out into fresh air. Fresh air and the sound of hovering camera drones just beyond the border of the police barrier that the MX had set up. Lovely. Just lovely.

He directed the MX: “Scan the body. Any signs of trauma?”

“Negative. Coroner is en route.”

So John was stuck here until then. With the paparazzi closing in.

Super. It was definitely going to be one of those days.

* * *

“I sure hope your day was better than mine,” John muttered, schlepping his way down the steps and into the bullpen. He was late and Dorian had been waiting for him on the landing, watching for him to make a grand entrance.

Not so grand, as it turned out. Not after slogging his way through layer upon layer of Dante’s Hell. Which, by the way, definitely had more levels than just the nine that Dante had bothered to describe. Way more.

Keeping pace with John as he aimed for his terminal, Dorian said, “I received over a hundred attempts at contact from media sources.”

John did a double-take. “Are you serious?”

“Do I look serious?”

“You look pissed. How did they even reach you?” There was no way dispatch would have rerouted calls that didn’t have to do with official police business and certainly not while Dorian was on duty.

“Forney,” Dorian bit out. “I’m still keeping an eye on him. He attended a discussion group at a public library today. Several borderline reputable news agencies were in attendance and asked questions about me.”

“So he forwarded them to you. What a pal.” John shook his head and patted Dorian’s shoulder in commiseration before leaning down to check that the day’s updates had gone through. They had and John promptly logged out. He was done, damn it. D-O-N-E, done. “As irritating as it is, I guess it’s still better to know, right?”

Dorian’s answer was a soft growl. Wow, John hadn’t heard that since the Low Charge Day. And they still had more to do -- miles to go before they could sleep.

“Hey,” John asked in a confidential aside, “you need to head home right away?”

“No. I’ll be all right.”

This time, John rubbed Dorian’s arm because there was no reason not to. Dorian was off duty and John had just signed out. “OK. I’m ready.”

In the parking lot, Dorian held out his hand for the cruiser keys and John passed them over without a second thought. Once they were inside and the car doors were all shut, John asked, “Do we risk stopping by to see DT?”

“I want to try.”

So that was what they did. There were no cameras waiting on the hospital steps or in the lobby. But there were plenty of stares because people stuck inside hospitals didn’t have anything better to do while they healed up than watch daytime broadcasts.

“Dorian!” DT greeted. The bruising was fading to a sickly green -- he looked like something a troll had picked out of its ear -- which meant he was on the mend. “Officer Dorian -- the man of the hour. And Detective Kennex. I was wondering when you’d give up on the lurking.”

John didn’t bother to list his reasons. With a shrug, he played it off, “Bah, you’re just jealous you’re not getting your seven minutes as Dorian’s sidekick.”

“How’s Hernandez holding up?”

 ** _ **Like a trooper,**_** John didn’t say because the question wasn’t directed at him.

Dorian said, “Actually, the media has been following John almost exclusively.” With a chagrined smile, he confided, “I think Maldonado put Sergeant Hernandez and I on a secure channel and coded our GPS.”

“So I’m the only one they can track on the scanner. Great.” John rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. Sandra had told him to deal with it. And if she’d put both Dorian and John on stealth mode, then the inquiries would just get forwarded to her office… where the phone would be ringing off the hook.

After a bit of requisite razzing, DT revealed that he’d be discharged the day after tomorrow. Dorian made sure the man understood he could call anytime. Dorian would be happy to stop by for a visit. “But we don’t want to intrude.”

“So let Dorian know when you’re decent and he’ll come over.”

“With beer?”

John chuckled. “The beer’s my department. We come as a package deal.”

“Well, damn. I knew there was a catch.”

They managed to get out of the hospital free and clear. The next stop was Dorian’s apartment where Forney and Goku were still staying.

As soon as the building came into view, John changed their plans. There were several cars idling in the loading zone out front. Paparazzi. Probably freelance, since no one appeared to have enough equipment for a proper van. The questions these inconsiderate assholes would ask would be beyond personal. They’d be insulting and degrading.

John kept driving. “Can you check in with Forney and Goku using the comms setup at home?”

“Of course, but you’ve got to know there’ll be even more reporters waiting for us there.”

“Yeah.” And if John weren’t trying to keep the media focused on him and Dorian, he’d suggest they say to hell with it and bunk with Val tonight. But. “Do we need to talk about our answers? Or what we’re not going to answer?”

Dorian considered that for half the time John would have taken. “Nah. It’s all right, man. I caught your comments today, so I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

As suspected, there was a cluster of news vans crowded around John’s apartment unit. It was like the O-course. The home party version. He sighed.

Dorian reached for his hand. “We’ve got this.”

“Don’t--Jesus, D. Don’t try to make me feel better. This was all my idea.”

“It was,” Dorian agreed, “but we’re partners.”

Yeah. Yeah, they were. At least that much hadn’t changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In episode “Blood Brothers,” Valerie’s MX-43 says it can hold more than a metric ton. But at the end of that episode, Dorian races after a moving van and flips it with one hand. So… I think DRNs are stronger than MXs.
> 
> “And miles to go before I sleep” is from Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”


	3. Card-Carrying Members

“Hey, what’s up?” John asked, nudging Dorian away from the refrigerator. The press had scampered with their sound bytes and pound of flesh apiece, but John could tell something was still bothering him. And it was bothering John that Dorian was just standing there with the door open, letting all the cold air out and bringing his beer that much closer to room temperature. “Something that rabble of jackal wannabes said get under your skin?”

It had taken almost twenty minutes just to wade through the cacophony. John had answered the questions that hadn’t outright offended him. Less than half of the queries, total. At least those bozos had calmed down once Dorian pleasantly informed them that neither he nor John were going anywhere. The arm curled around John’s waist had kept him from reneging. Or shooting anyone. It had been a tough call a couple of times.

John scowled at the memory of a particularly nasty leer: “DRN design schematics indicate that they were very generously endowed. Can you confirm that and did it affect your decision to pursue a relationship?”

“Dorian being one of the best people I know and a great partner who I could trust with my life played a hell of a role. Next. Question.” Yeah, OK, so he’d snapped. Once.

If Dorian’s beaming grin had been any indication, he’d enjoyed it. So it was totally worth it.

Dorian wasn’t beaming now. His posture was stiff and voice terse: “Captain Maldonado asked me today at end of shift if I’d been coerced into participating in an intimate relationship with you.”

John didn’t know whether to smile or scowl. “Well, we didn’t have the most equitable start, you and me.” He grabbed a jar of marinara sauce and a few random vegetables that he was in the mood to mutilate. Italian stir fry tonight. Or ratatouille. Whatever you call it. “And rank could still be an issue if we’re both permanently assigned to Delta Division.”

“The issue is bullshit.”

“The issue is one people have to deal with. You’re a card-carrying club member now.” Literally.

“I’m not in the mood for puns, man.”

John pulled out the cutting board and colander. “No, you’re in the mood to punch something.” Why couldn’t Dorian have creatively redirected his energies at the press that had been barricading John’s parking space outside?

“It’s insulting! I have free will, John.”

“Hey, hey. Sandra asked me the same question.” He delayed his search for a slicing knife and rubbed Dorian’s arms instead. “If a person’s only other options are unbearable, then there is no choice.” He had Dorian’s full attention now. “Sandra asked me because, at the time, working with an MX was a deal breaker.” John’s psyche could not have handled it. No way, no how.

“So I was your only choice. Do you feel coerced?”

“Of course not,” John soothed. “But I would understand if you did. At some point.”

Dorian blew out a hot breath. “Never because of you.”

“Oh, I dunno. There were those field repairs I had to make in the Sanderson Building. Don’t think you had much of a choice in that.”

“Would you refuse first aid on a bullet wound?”

“Fair point.” John resumed his search for cooking implements. “What about when you had to save the hostages? You went up there thinking you’d be alone. With at least four armed gunmen and an activated light bomb.” **_**You’d thought you wouldn’t be making it out of there alive.**_**

John’s throat locked tight. He realized he was staring right at the knife he needed. It was sitting on top, bold as brass, in the drawer. He forced his jaw to unclench and sucked in a breath.

“Yes,” Dorian answered. “That moment stands out.” A heated palm pressed on John’s lower back. “Thank you. For not giving up.”

“You have to, I have to,” John summarized. When Dorian’s thumb dragged over the weave of John’s sweater, he turned. Dorian’s fingertips trailed along his jaw, guiding him in for a slow kiss.

A touch of lips. A reward. For a single futile attempt to make life a little less unfair. Or equally unfair. It was a toss up.

“I want to make love to you tonight,” Dorian whispered. Heat and goose bumps flashed over John’s entire body. “But cameras could still be outside.” Just beyond the property line, hovering in public domain.

John petted Dorian’s cheek. “I wish I could just forget that they’re there.” But he couldn’t. Not wouldn’t -- couldn’t.

Dorian tilted in, pulling John’s forehead down to touch his. Noses brushed in a gentle caress. Dorian smiled and this was what John was here for. What he needed.

Dorian whispered, “Why don’t you take a shower? I’ll cook.”

“Yeah, thanks. But just--let me cut up the vegetables first.”

Dorian scanned the assortment. “You’ll need some protein.”

Yeah, something other than soy-based energy bars would be good. In thanks, he angled in for a brief kiss. Beyond words.

Dorian washed up the vegetables and John destroyed them. “Try to get even slices on the potato,” Dorian requested, passing one over.

“Not gonna happen. If it’s a big deal, you’d better do it.”

“OK.”

“I’ll take a shower.”

“I’ll feed you when you get out.”

“No slugs, no cockroaches.”

“None of the recipes I consulted listed those as ingredients for a Spanish omelet.”

“Just so long as you follow an insect-free recipe, I can shower in peace.”

The following day was not peaceful. There wasn’t much progress to be made on the conspiracy against DRNs. Nothing to do besides scour the dossiers and company histories that Val had put together. But without deep financial background on the tech resellers, they couldn’t show intent to deliberately drive up the price of the preexisting chargers.

They had data on the DRNs’ hardware deterioration and they had the logs from Rudy’s chargers, but they had nothing linking them together as causal events. Without the chargers themselves, Rudy couldn’t prove that they hadn’t been made to specs. And without that, they couldn’t subpoena the manufacturer’s records.

Dorian had detected an accelerant at the scene -- minute traces of a chemical that was accessible to everybody and their dog… and their dog’s fleas. The fire investigator argued that the quantity didn’t meet the threshold for arson, especially since there was no indication of the fire being set deliberately; Dorian might be picking up on a container of weedkiller that had gone up with everything else. It had been a garage, after all.

And to make matters even more shitastic, the entire neighborhood had been canvased and nobody had seen a damn thing. So they were left with a whole lot of suspicious circumstances and not a single lead.

By the time John was up on patrol duty, he was so far beyond angry grump it wasn’t funny.

MX-43 Unit 1127 was back in Dorian’s spot in the passenger seat and the only thing that kept John from dumping the robot out into traffic was imagining Dorian in its place.

A zing of red lights on the thing’s cheek. John reflexively braced himself.

“Detective Kennex. Another incident of a body found in a dumpster has been reported.”

The second in two days. “Show us responding. What’s the address?”

It was nowhere near the tram track dump, but the cause of death appeared to be the same: lethal alcohol poisoning. This bin hadn’t been tipped over, though, so John would have to hoist himself up to get a look at the scene. Oh, happy day.

The MX offered him a boost. John ignored it.

This time, the deceased was a woman. Much younger than the man from yesterday. She wasn’t dressed in layers, either, like many vagrants were this time of year. The nights got chilly in April. She was dressed like she’d been hoping somebody would warm her up.

“MX, ID the body.”

“Welima Jonas.”

“Arrest record?”

“Three arrests for solicitation. One for shoplifting. One for breaking and entering. Two for vandalism. Juvenile records are sealed.”

But John’s imagination was already filling in a lot of blanks. He stomped over to the guy who’d found the body. The garbage truck driver. The truck was dark green with the company name in flowing, yellow script along the side: NaturAg Waste Systems.

Nag. That was what everyone called it. The driver looked too nervous and fresh-faced to get the joke, so John didn’t share.

“You found the body at what time?”

“Uh, about one-thirty?” An answer that was also a question. John’s favorite kind.

“You always check the contents of the dumpster before emptying?”

“Well, um. It’s only my third day driving a truck? But we all got a memo today, telling us to check. Because of, y’know, what they found yesterday. And I guess there was another one? A while back?”

John waited while the kid fumbled with his gloves and then pawed at his jacket pocket to produce his phone and show him the company alert message on the screen. “Was the dumpster locked when you got here?”

“Yes. Yes, sir.”

“Everybody have the same set of keys?”

“Yeah. The dumpsters have ID chips, and the customer gets a key just for that bin, but employees have a master key. Saves time on a haul.”

“Uh-huh. This your regular route?”

“Ah, we don’t really have routes? When a dumpster needs to be emptied, it pops up on the software.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Er, it’s not scheduled or anything. It’s up to the sensors inside the bin. They let us know when it’s either at capacity or might become a sanitation issue.”

Given what John had just gotten a whiff of from this one, he’d put his money on the latter. “These things sense human DNA or decay?”

“No. No, nothing like that I don’t think. It’s just basic hazard levels of one-to-ten.”

Right. Because there were no government regulations stating that sanitation companies had to make sure their customers weren’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And customers weren’t keen to pay for the upgrade. The tech was there, but nobody wanted to use it. Bullshit like this was what turned John’s job into an uphill battle.

A dark blob at the edge of John’s vision had him looking back over his shoulder. Out on the main road, another Nag truck idled past. Probably in response to the dumpster’s sensor still going off.

“Sir? Can I get back to work now?”

John turned back around. “In a minute.”

“Oh. So I can…?” He gestured significantly toward the bin. “I mean, I get that you guys will keep the body, but--”

“Oh, no. We get the whole enchilada.”

The kid didn’t quite know what to make of that.

John pushed on to the next question before the driver could decide to get huffy about it: “So what’s your area today?”

The young man said, “Eleventh Street to Everton Road.”

John blinked, turned and looked over his shoulder toward the busy street at the end of the alley. “Well, that’s Fourteenth. You missed your turn-off by a couple of blocks. Invest in a map.”

Sound advice. Upon returning to the bullpen, John wondered if he ought to pick one up, too, because John’s tired but friendly greeting had been completely ignored by Detective Stahl. She acted like she hadn’t even heard him.

What the hell?

John swung around and quirked a brow at Paul, cuing him to do the honors and fill John in, but the other detective was frowning, too. Just as confused as John.

“Come on, Max. Let’s go,” she said to the unblinking android standing by.

“Drive safe,” Paul tested and John waited for a response.

“Thanks. If I don’t see you before you clock out, have a good one tomorrow.”

Tomorrow was Paul’s scheduled day off. Val had remembered and remembered to comment on that, and yet she breezed past John like he was invisible.

“Would you like me to talk to her?” Dorian asked later that evening. He’d coaxed John onto the sofa to watch a documentary about penguins. That alone had gotten a chuckle out of him because, hey, this might be one of Mrs. Fisk’s personal favorites. Whoo-hoo. But Antarctica looked cold, so John used that as an excuse to snuggle up next to his fiancé. Which had probably been Dorian’s plan all along: poke him in his inappropriate sense of humor and then cuddle.

“Nah,” John finally answered after slowly absorbing Dorian’s offer. “I’ll corner her at the coffee machine tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”

Dorian shifted and, moments later, John felt fingertips gently brushing through his hair. “Don’t forget to apologize when she tells you what you did wrong.”

“Don’t forg--hey. I apologize. I do good apologies. Epic.”

“Apologize like you mean it, John.”

He tucked his face into Dorian’s shoulder. “Like I mean it,” he muttered. He didn’t even have the energy to get irritated. Not after another press conference in the driveway and Dorian’s off-handed comment that John was uniquely photogenic in all sorts of lighting. From that, John had inferred that he hadn’t imagined the hum and whir of media drones buzzing at the minimum legal distance today. All damn day long.

Dorian’s pursed lips pressed briefly against his hairline. The narrator started blah-blah-blahing about how long penguins could hold their breath under water.

John had just closed his eyes when the phone rang.


	4. B&E

This time, the person in the dumpster was a cop. Working undercover and dressed to pass for a homeless man on the streets.

John and Dorian arrived on the scene just as the ambulance screamed off on its way to the hospital.

“He’s still alive?” John asked the assigned detective after distractedly introducing himself and offering to shake hands.

“Yeah,” she said. “Locator chip. When the drone performed its scheduled flyover, well, the operator figured he wouldn’t be in that dumpster if he didn’t need help. What’s your interest here?”

“I’ve got two other bodies found in dumpsters in the last couple days. And third back in March.” After his interview with the truck driver who’d found the woman that morning, John had looked into it and, sure enough, there’d been another incident almost two months ago. John eyed the dumpster that was now being treated as a crime scene. It was a Nag. The same as the others. There were seven disposal companies that offered services for organic and biodegradable waste in the city; John had checked. Why Nag? Over and over and over again?

At this point, John was willing to rule out coincidence. Someone either really liked Nag bins or had it in for the company. Still, three discoveries in under three days… whatever this was, it was escalating.

John thanked the detective and then put in a request for the undercover investigator’s GPS activity. He also tapped into the medical examiner’s office and flagged both recent bodies as priority.

“You’ve got a new case,” Dorian assessed as John slid into the passenger seat of the cruiser.

“It’s turning into one, yeah.”

After a moment, Dorian quietly said, “I’d like to help. If I can.”

Yeah, John wanted his help, too. Ached with the loss of their working relationship. John hadn’t felt this hollow since Pelham had died. Little wonder Dorian had spoken so softly. He knew John was trying really hard not to let it get to him and the offer would just remind them both of what could never be.

John cleared his throat. “Yeah. I’ll let you know if I need a consult.”

Dorian’s hand found John’s.

“The deaths might be accidental,” John blurted, desperate to escape the grief that was steadily thickening in the car. He’d been doing so well, too, distracting himself from the anger. Hell, the MX had survived working with him for two whole shifts. That was a bonafide miracle.

“Hey, has Rudy been in touch?” John remembered to ask. “How’re James and Russell?”

As he navigated the streets, Dorian relayed the latest news: “The families of several residents where James works have offered to pool their funds and cover the cost of replacing the damaged servo. Russell is up and around, but he’s got a stutter. That should go away once the nanobots manage to close up all the flesh wounds.”

“Right. That’s the sensor feedback causing problems.”

“Yeah.”

“Any progress on the electrical damage?”

“It’s hard to say. It’s going to be a while before we know. Rudy’s trying to reprogram the nanobots to do a better job -- they were designed to repair torn skin and vessels, not overheated hardware.”

John nodded and turned his gaze toward the window. As the light-studded darkness blurred past, John didn’t say how lucky they were to have caught the sabotage when they did because, sure, these four DRNs were still alive, but what was life when you weren’t capable of doing the work you’d chosen? John thought of Russell, who’d just discovered a passion for healing the injured and traumatized. Would he be able to finish his physical therapy course? Would he ever work in that field? A half-life, that was what Russell was facing. It was what John was living without Dorian as his partner.

God, but he wanted somebody to pay for taking that away.

Until he had someone specific to blame, he’d focus on the case. This dumpster thing. If it even was a case.

The medical examiner confirmed it twenty minutes before roll call the next morning:

“With the amount of alcohol in their systems, there’s no way either of them could have climbed into those bins without a leg up. Unless you found empty bottles with them?”

The bottom of a dumpster. Now that would be a hell of a place to drink yourself to death. John huffed at the absurdity. “No, nothing like that.”

“Well, I understand that the body brought in on Monday -- male vagrant, late forties--”

John tried really hard not to feel personally offended. More like automatically offended. Because John couldn’t pretend he wouldn’t be turning forty-seven next month.

“--was found in a bin that had been tipped over, so unless we know when that happened…?”

“Yeah, we do. The bin’s got a GPS chip. Uh…” He tapped through the case file on his terminal screen to find the exact time stamp. “Eleven-fifteen, Monday morning, the bin was moved. Presumably, that was when the driver tried to empty it and it slipped off the arm of the truck.”

A worn out servo, the Nag director of operations had said. The truck had been brought in for repairs and the driver sent back out in a different rig to clean up the mess. But, in the meantime, a tram worker had spotted the body and called it in.

The medical examiner declared, “The body was there for eight to twelve hours. Assuming the bin was in its proper upright position when the driver arrived to empty it, then I’m ruling this a death under suspicious circumstances.”

“Thanks,” John said and called forensics next.

“We’re backlogged today, Detective,” the exhausted technician droned.

“Yeah, I understand. I don’t need a report or an analysis.” All he wanted was for some lucky labbie to sniff the clothes that had been sent over from the ME’s office. An intern got the privilege.

“Whew! Oh--my--God, that’s rank.”

John very generously waited a second for the kid to get his gag reflex under control. “What are you picking up?”

“Well, alcohol. Lots of cheap liquor. Gin, maybe? Ugh, holy cow, I think this guy must have taken a bath in the stuff.”

“Anything else?”

“Um, liquor on the coat and shirts, and… ugh, gross. I’m glad I’m wearing gloves right now. Urine on the trousers and underwear.”

Urine. Due to a medical condition or something else? Adults didn’t normally piss their pants. Especially if they didn’t have regular access to laundry facilities. “Could you schedule that for testing?”

“Yeah. I’ll put a note on it. Priority?”

John chuckled wryly. “Isn’t everything?”

The captain stepped out of her office just then, so John hung up and fell in alongside Val. She stiffened and shifted half a step away. Like John smelled bad or something. He nearly reached for his collar to give himself a sniff, but stuffed his hands in his pockets instead.

He was handed another new case. A home invasion. Of a Chrome. It looked like a single, isolated incident, but apparently they were getting the VIP treatment. Yeah, why was John not surprised?

“Detective Stahl will do the interviews. On-site,” Maldonado ordered. “Kennex, focus on what was taken.”

Because if John pissed anyone off, Sandra would be the first to hear about it.

He waited until everyone had dispersed and the captain finished authorizing whatever was on the tablet she’d just been handed before John jokingly (but very seriously) asked, “Should I be wearing a tactical vest for this? I’m not real popular with Chromes right now.”

“I’m aware,” she replied. “I trust you get the job done, John.”

Aw, shit. There was method in this madness. The captain wanted to give someone in the Chrome community access to the man who was engaged to a DRN. So that explained why she’d chosen him (instead of literally anyone else) to work with Val on this.

Rolling his chin in a very reluctant agreement (that was brimming with misgivings), John accepted the challenge. “Copy that.”

Grabbing his jacket off of the back of his chair, John scanned the bullpen for Valerie, but she’d vanished without a word. John collected his MX (1127 again), and pushed the speed limit to make up for lost time, arriving just as Valerie was walking up the steps to the sprawling house. It sat atop a forested hill. Privacy and open sky. The kinds of things very few people could afford these days.

Valerie flashed her badge to the officer standing guard at the door and John did likewise, trying not to grimace at the fanfare. A standard police barrier would have done the job even better in this day and age of facemakers and what-not, but the laser posts would have put holes in the manicured lawn. God forbid.

“Doctor Smythe? Professor Smythe? I’m Detective Valerie Stahl. I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.”

As Valerie shook hands with the two statuesque women who owned the place, John took in a quick sweep of the room, noting the tasteful family portrait above the replica fireplace. “Detective John Kennex,” he said, speaking and stepping up in the wake of Val’s indifference.

“Yes, I’d thought they might send you,” Doctor Laura Smythe said. She looked pretty put-together for a supposed victim of a home invasion.

“Why is that?” John didn’t bother to be polite. Not to someone who was already acting like a condescending, self-entitled heiress of the universe.

Her wife supplied the answer: “Our DRN was taken. Among other things.”

“A DRN,” John drawled slowly. Damn but he hated surprises. “And yet you aren’t insisting on this being treated as a kidnapping.”

Professor Regina Smythe smiled apologetically. “He wasn’t activated. Or registered with city hall as a citizen. We’re not really sure where we stand legally in that regard.”

“Right. Any reason you can think of for why someone would want a deactivated DRN?”

“Nothing comes to mind,” the doctor smoothly answered.

“Detective Kennex,” Valerie interjected before he could build momentum, “if you’ll assess the affected areas of the house? I’m sure the Smythes have a list of all that was taken.”

The professor nodded. “Yes, right here.” She passed a top-of-the-line tablet to Valerie, who passed it to John.

John successfully resisted the urge to give them a jaunty salute. Pivoting on his heel, he stalked back into the foyer to get his MX on the case. As it scanned the various spots in the house where the thief or thieves had picked out their loot, John scowled at the tablet screen. He’d pulled up the registered insurance data on the android, but he wasn’t reading it. He was thinking about the family portrait in the parlor and the very familiar face of the couple’s son. John and Val had interviewed him before, back at Mendel Academy. He was friends with that cocky little shit Marshall McCarty.

Yeah, it really was a small world sometimes. But no way was it that damn small.

As the MX finished up documenting each scene for trace evidence, John circled back toward the parlor.

“I see. Thank you for your time,” Valerie was just now saying, concluding the interview.

“Our pleasure.”

“Absolutely,” Regina Smythe agreed. “You work with some very interesting people. So… colorful.”

Colorful, right. Just that tone of voice made John consider sniffing himself. Was he stinking up their precious, little kingdom?

John slowed his steps as Laura Smythe added, “The stain from these kinds of associations is hard to wash off.”

“We all worry about you, you know. Your father in particular has been beside himself.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Valerie rasped, but didn’t say that she was just fine, thank you very much. She didn’t defend her coworkers, either. A distinction that not only John noticed, but the Smythes as well.

“It can’t be easy,” the professor attempted to sympathize. “What you’re going through with all this…”

“We’d like to help if we can. At least give you a shoulder to cry on.”

“Come to the club tomorrow night. We made sure they sent you an invitation.”

Valerie’s answer was hesitant. “I can’t. It’s too late to RSVP.”

“We’ll take care of that.”

A slight pause. “All right. Perhaps I’ll see you there.”

A moment later, Valerie left the room and made directly for the front door. She didn’t glance over her shoulder at John. Didn’t even text him to let him know she was leaving.

Regina and Laura appeared in the doorway. “Detective Kennex. If we’d known you were standing there, we would have included you in the conversation.”

 ** _ **I doubt that.**_** But John just smiled and, handing the tablet back to its owners, he took a page from their snooty son’s book and retorted, “That’s OK. I wouldn’t understand. Would I?” At the sound of his assigned MX approaching, John nodded and made his exit: “Have a good day.”

“You as well, Detective,” Laura Smythe said to his back.

John was almost at the door when Regina thought to add, “Congratulations on your impending nuptials.”

He paused and just could not resist. Just--after all the patronizing looks and veiled judgement, John could not resist. “Why thank you. I’ll pass that along to my fiancé.”

And then he got the hell out of there. Before he said something that would definitely make Maldonado’s phone ring.


	5. Motivation to Succeed

“Good evening, Detective Stahl. How was your shift?” Dorian very politely asked.

Valerie looked up from the celo she was studying, gave Dorian a bland smile, and murmured, “Fine.” Then, she proceeded to ignore him.

John, watching this byplay, decided now was a good time to catch Dorian’s attention. With a swat to the DRN’s lower back, John said, “Mud wrestling tonight. You up for it?”

“Am I up for listening to you complain about how mud gets everywhere -- again?” Dorian sassed as John grabbed his jacket. He was ready to be anywhere else but here.

“Hey. That was sand and yes I’m still shaking bits of beach out of those pants’ pockets.”

“You were the one who wore them. Who wears cargos to the beach, man?”

“Anyone who’s going to the beach in mid-April,” John insisted.

“And you still got a sunburn.”

“Did not.”

“You did. On your nose. It was very cute.”

“Of course it was,” John mocked. “My nose is fantastic.”

John declared this as they passed by Valerie’s desk. She had her head down, but there was a smile twitching at her lips. John’s grin widened as he ushered Dorian out of the bullpen.

“Fantastic,” Dorian repeated flatly and then heckled him up the steps to the landing, “if by ‘fantastic’ you mean ‘possessing so much character you could fill the cast of a Broadway musical.’”

“Are you going to be this cranky all night?”

Dorian didn’t answer him until John was behind the wheel of the cruiser and pulling out of his parking space. “I’m cranky with reason, John.”

“Low charge?”

“What did I do to Valerie?”

“The same thing I did.”

That stumped Dorian. For a solid twenty seconds, he processed, probably going through the last three days, minute-by-minute.

“You got engaged,” John helpfully supplied, trying not to feel too smug that he’d figured it out before Dorian had. Or, at least, John was making an effort not to be too obvious about it.

“But... I’d thought she was happy for us.”

“I’m sure she is, but we’ve probably got a leak at the department -- somebody spilled the beans about James and Russell going in for a visit with Rudy -- and that same person might be in a position to observe Val.”

“Who is trying to be on good terms with the Chrome community, which wants us to disappear,” Dorian realized. “Right. I see the issue now.”

“Just don’t let on that you know.”

“That I--what?”

“If she keeps it up, I’m going to get in her face. Cause a stink.” John smirked, looking forward to it. “You should, too. Get all huffy and self-righteous.” John gesticulated aimlessly. “Scold and lecture **_**her**_** in front of the whole damn bullpen this time, huh?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t. It worked a little too well on you and she’s not supposed to break her cover.” Dorian’s brows hitched in blatant challenge.

Which John answered: “Oh, yeah. It worked on me all right. You flashing me in the cruiser worked like a charm, too.” Pointing with an index finger to stall Dorian’s retort, John added, “And if you’ve got the same smooth move queued up for Val, you and I are gonna have to have a talk about monogamy.”

Dorian snorted. “Has it escaped your notice that I am one of hundreds of DRNs? With identical physiology?”

“You’re not identical,” John insisted. “And that--” He glanced pointedly to Dorian’s lap. “--doesn’t get to thrill anybody but me.”

Dorian smirked. Sighed. Shook his head. Then he circled back around to an earlier point: “Are we really going mud wrestling tonight?”

John shrugged the arm and shoulder closest to Dorian. “Nah. You’re right about it getting everywhere. I was thinking… a museum or a play?”

“You’re taking me out on a date?” God, could Dorian sound any more excited?

John played it cool. Arching his brows, he checked, “Is that not allowed?”

“It’s allowed, but.” Another sexy-as-hell growl rumbled in Dorian’s throat and behind gritted teeth. “The press is still out there.”

“I know. The cloud of drones was looking a little thin today, though. We’d better give them something new to air.”

“Oh. So this is a working date.”

“No. It’s an I-can-finally-take-my-fiancé-out-on-the-town-and-be-grossly-affectionate date. I was starting to think we’d be stuck in the closet until Christmas.” Decades from now.

Dorian seemed surprised. “You’ve been looking forward to this?”

“Of course I have.” John glanced over and frowned at Dorian’s bewildered expression. “Hey, you’ve never seen me go all-out. But the whole city knows about us now and you’re still, y’know, **_**here,**_** and I’ve still got a job. I say we take this out for a spin.”

“Hm. Lysistrata, a comedy credited to Aristophanes, is playing in the Greek Village theater. Seats are available. Curtain goes up at eight.”

John giggled at one of his old college lit favorites. “That’ll work.” Bumping Dorian’s arm, he said, “Don’t read the play before we see it. You’ll enjoy it better that way.”

And John enjoyed how much Dorian enjoyed it. The theater was run down and shabby -- a little like John -- and the performers were inexperienced and enthusiastic freshmen -- a little like Dorian, but man what a hoot. Every time Dorian laughed helplessly or his hands flew up to muffle a gasp of delight, John felt a thrill.

They probably looked especially photogenic when they spilled out onto the street with the other patrons. Dorian was leaning heavily against John as he giggled. John had talked him into wearing one of John’s old dress shirts -- one that had gotten a little tight in the shoulders and hips over the years -- and John had dug out a two-tone green-on-brown button-down that shifted between the two colors depending on the light. He wondered which one the cameras would capture.

“Let me buy you a tonic, D,” John said before the reporters converged.

“We have work tomorrow, John.”

“Is that a no?”

Dorian’s grin was lopsided and shy and completely kissable. “No. It wasn’t a no.”

So John ducked down for a quick kiss. The cameras definitely caught that.

“Detective Kennex! Officer Dorian!”

Oh, great. **_**Here we go.**_**

John pasted a smile on his face, but then a touch on his chin had him looking into Dorian’s eyes. Gazing on Dorian’s happiness. They were on a date. In public. No matter what happened -- no matter what the future would bring -- nobody could take this back.

John’s hokey grin melted into a genuine curve of lips. Sliding an arm over Dorian’s shoulders, he inhaled slowly as he turned toward the insistent summons. The media wasn’t going to poison this moment. John refused to let them.

“Nice night,” he greeted, and got on with the show.

* * *

“What do we know about the bodies recently found in NaturAg dumpsters?” Captain Maldonado wanted to know.

Valerie was missing from their usual pow wow. So was Dorian. It was just John, Richard, and Sandra. Without half their team, it felt like he ought to be whispering, so John projected nice and loud, “Nothing we didn’t know yesterday. I sent in a request for Officer Riley’s GPS data.”

Gene Riley of the Narcotics Unit at Precinct 27 had been undercover when someone had dunked him in cheap liquor and helped him into a dumpster. John had made inquiries; Riley was already on the mend, but he couldn’t recall a damn thing about the attack. So. Back to square one: the GPS data from his locator chip.

“That ground would have already been covered backwards and forwards by vice,” the captain reminded him. Raining on John’s parade.

“And it would be awfully nice of them to share,” John retorted, losing patience at an alarming rate. Sandra had herded him and Paul into a conference room immediately following roll call. Ten minutes into his shift and he was ready to knock some heads together.

Paul hissed a chuckle. “You--share? Hah. You’ve got to know how funny that word sounds coming out of your mouth.”

Not as funny as a couple of loose teeth would be coming out of Captain Energy’s.

“John. Where are we with victim profiles?”

“We’re nowhere.” Because that was where all the known victims (with the exception of Riley) had lived. Nowhere. “No residence. No stomping ground. No family. If they had friends or pimps or pen pals, no one is coming forward.”

God damn it, John loathed cases like this. Not only did the victims themselves defy any effort at putting together a baseline or, hell, even a timeline of their final hours, but anyone who might have seen anything either didn’t give enough of a damn to speak up or they genuinely believed that the cops would blow them off. Corralling the people of the street was like herding cats. And even the aid workers and shelter volunteers kept their distance.

How was John supposed to even know where to start? At least with the death of a person with a home address, there were people up in each other’s business: family, friends, coworkers, classmates, neighbors, landlords, exes. John was now limited to whatever forensics could make of the trace found on the body. And that could take weeks to process. By then, the trail would be stone cold.

Cases like this went unsolved more often than not, and they weren’t just a loss on the scoreboard or dead weight dragging down incident clearance quota. They were a black hole of nothingness. It made John’s soul itch.

Captain Maldonado ignored the fact that John was absently curling and uncurling his fingers in abject frustration. “Then where are we with the dumpsters themselves? Do we know which keys opened them last?”

John dropped his hand flat on the table. “We don’t even know that a key last opened them. Apparently, you can build a gizmo to crack the lock. Make it think that a legitimate key is being used.”

That had been an eye-opening chat with a tech at the scene. John could have lived his whole life in happy ignorance of the deeply disturbing fact that not only was hacking into a garbage bin feasible but a common occurrence. Common as in, **_“Gee, baby, wanna go crack open a metal box of sludge on Friday night? Ice cream afterwards!”_**

Jesus.

With a huff, John complained, “Anyone with half a head for tech and a hundred bucks can whip up a bin breaker.”

Paul snorted. “In that case, we can rule you out.”

John sent a sneering grin his way. “And rule you in? Not sure hacking into a dumpster is something you ought to be bragging about, pal.”

“John,” the captain barked and John forced himself to lean back in his chair. “NaturAg’s enemies. Tell me you’ve gotten a start on anyone with a grudge.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Three different environmentalist groups have on-going lawsuits. Staged two protests outside the company’s processing facility -- just this year -- that got some attention from the media. Complaints filed by neighbors at the local sheriff’s office. A dozen employees recently let go. Need I go on?”

“Richard,” the captain said, “give him a hand.”

John gestured for her attention. “Those GPS coordinates would go a long way toward helping us narrow down possible suspects. We can pull footage from traffic cams if we just know what time and which ones Riley passed by.”

“But the other two recent victims were in the news.” Paul argued, “We’ve got to consider the possibility that whoever got to Riley is hoping to pin it on the perp responsible for the others.”

Captain Maldonado agreed. “Riley’s assault is being handled as a separate investigation. Disregard it for now. If you come up with anything on the other three, then I’ll put you in touch with the lead investigator on the Riley case so you can compare notes. But don’t expect them to match up.”

“Yeah, it’s far more likely that Riley got made.”

“Voice of experience, huh, Paul?”

“Hey,” Sandra barked. “Work your cases, gentlemen.”

Just then, her phone chirped and she dug the device out of her jacket pocket. Expression tight with frustration, she marched out of the conference room.

John watched her go, deflating with the loss of their one, invested spectator. Even Paul seemed to lose motivation to keep up the back-and-forth. He pushed himself back from the table with a sigh.

“Hey. Hold up,” John blurted, surprising Paul with his civil tone. “You know what’s going on with Val?”

“You don’t?” He was more shocked than mocking. The mockery would be right on its heels, though.

John ignored the dig. Paul had pretty much just answered his question. “She knows you’ve got her back, right?”

“Jesus, Kennex. Not everyone’s on the verge of screwing over their team.”

**_**Like you.** _ **

John stood up and spun toward the door. It was either that or he was going to flip the entire table onto the asshole and squash him like a bug.

“Shit, John. I’m--”

“Shut up. Just shut up and do right by Val.” Because John sure as hell couldn’t step up. Not so long as he was persona non grata among the Chomes that Val was trying to ingratiate herself with. He stomped out of the room, banging the door open and dispelling exactly none of his anger.

He thundered toward the elevator. Stepped in. Punched the button for one of the basement floors. Found himself in the locker room.

He was standing in front of Pelham’s old locker. He could still remember what Martin had kept inside it. Projections of his wife’s cute notes from his phone that he’d transferred onto the holo screen magnetized to the inside of the locker door. Candid photos of his son. Hopes. Dreams.

But this locker was empty of all that now.

Scrubbing his palms over his swimming eyes and slimy lips, John shuffled down to the next bank of lockers. He stopped in front of Dorian’s. The combination lock. The hopes. The dreams.

John was not going to fail this time.


	6. A Calling

The Nag president looked like Santa Claus’ younger brother. He even carried the scent of sugar cookies and frosting with him. In the middle of an organic and biodegradable waste processing compound. John couldn’t have explained it even if he’d wanted to.

“Did you like the corporate video?” Mattie Burdock eagerly inquired, his plump cheeks pink and his fluffy white beard shifting in the afternoon breeze.

“It was great,” John told him agreeably. “The part about all this--” He nodded toward the lumbering trucks and steaming chimney pipes. “--being more than just a business was particularly moving.”

Mattie giggled and right there the likeness to Saint Nick failed. “My dad started this company and, in those days, everyone thought it was crazy. Crazy to care about waste management. Crazy to spend the extra time and money to make fertilizer for farmers to grow food to feed our hungry country. Everybody just wanted to dig a hole and throw it all in. Kitchen sink included.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking the tech’s a ways off before you can compost one of those.”

Mattie enjoyed the joke. “Wouldn’t I love to see that!”

Continuing on with the tour, Mattie touted the fleet of trucks they used for collection. All running on clean fuel. “Expensive, but worth it!”

Since Mattie had officially finished for the day and his son was now the go-to guy, he had all the time in the world to entertain visitors. So John got the whole spiel on how the Burdocks knew every aspect of the business front-wards and back-wards. Mattie himself had started out in the plant as a sorter when he’d been a high school student before moving up to truck driver and then customer service and he’d finally been promoted to operations manager when his father had retired. “Mine’s just around the corner,” he said, speculating on handing over the reins, “but I still take a truck out for pick ups every now and then!”

“All the Burdocks do,” John guessed dryly.

“That’s right!” he crowed as if it were a privilege equal to landing on the moon.

A strange man, Matthew Burdock, but when John asked to see any threats that the company had received in the last year, he gladly obliged.

As the MX scanned and downloaded potential leads, John took a look around the president’s office. It was woodsy and bright. Not at all like the typical perch for whoever sat at the top of the company pyramid. No glass or steel in sight. Lots of photos, though. Ones on actual paper and preserved in old-time frames.

“That was my father,” Mattie narrated. “And his brother. It was because of him that this business got going, actually.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

“Well, my uncle had it rough. He served his country for more than ten years before he was discharged. Medical -- he saw quite a lot of action.”

John did the math and nodded. There’d been plenty of volatile war zones dotting the globe fifty years ago.

“But his country let him down. He ended up on the streets. Nothing my dad did could keep him off of them. Uncle Pete would wander off and Dad would bring him home, clean him up… and then the next thing you know, there he was again, panhandling on the corner of Lex and Seventh.” Mattie sighed. “But, with all the trips my dad made through the alleys behind restaurants and markets, he got a good look at all the things people were dumping into landfills. We couldn’t save Uncle Pete from his demons, but maybe we can keep the streets cleaner, maybe we can give a little back into society instead of throwing opportunity away.”

It was a hell of a start-up story, that was for damn sure.

On the way back to the cruiser, which John had parked at a considerable distance (and upwind) from the facility, John dug out his phone and called Dorian. It was his day off and he’d mentioned something about stopping by to see Rudy.

“Hey, how’s my man doing?” John teased when Dorian picked up.

“Am I meant to assume you’re referring to me?”

Hah. Somebody was in a playful mood. “Just how many people answer calls to this number?”

“Just me.”

“Well, there you have it.”

Dorian hummed, which made John grin.

“Leaving the Ag Zone now. Pretty sure we can cross this off of the date list.”

“I’d still like to drive through and see it for myself.”

John paused and surveyed the rolling fields of tilled earth and just-sprouting crops, the scattered copses of lingering woodland finally getting their green on with new foliage. “Yeah, OK. Late summer might be nice.” The grain would be ripening and drying to a picturesque gold then. Or in the fall, for the changing leaves on distant maple trees. “How’s it going over there?”

“If you’re calling for an update, there’s not much I can tell you. Rudy’s replacing James’ damaged servo today. I’m assisting.”

“Uh-oh. This is like texting-and-driving, right? You being on the phone during an operation.”

“Multitasking, John. Look it up sometime.”

“Yeah, yeah.” John opened his mouth to say something he probably shouldn’t. Something about how much he was looking forward to tomorrow because tomorrow was John’s day off. Dorian’s, too. God it felt like it had been ages since they’d been able to have a whole day together. He had high hopes for it. Plenty of ideas, too. Which he should not mention anywhere near an MX. They had the nasty habit of archiving EVERYTHING.

“Hey, John,” Dorian began, saving him from volunteering personal information for preservation in the police database. “Rudy knows something’s up with Val. She hasn’t been returning any of his calls. Should I tell him?”

“That’s up to you, D.” John shrugged. “I’m not going to.”

“Why not?”

“Um. Rudy’s other undercover assignment? The sting we ran on the Bishop? Ring any bells?”

“I think we can assume that this situation is significantly less life-threatening. He can handle it.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Have a little faith, John.”

“Are you offering?” he teased.

“I’m insisting. Besides, it’ll look good on you.”

Hah. Nice one. “Well. In that case, maybe I’ll throw a little on after dinner.”

“I’m looking forward to it. Now shut your mouth and get back to work before you regret it. The audio range of an MX is further than you think. Drive safe.”

Dorian hung up but John still muttered, “Sassy pants.” So what if that ended up in the database. He could live with it.

Returning to Delta Division, John found a lovely present waiting for him: the investigator on the Riley case had forwarded John the GPS data. They had a suspect in custody. That meant John could pile on the heat. But the guy, a Marius Owen, had lawyered up, so it was on John to find a link before he started applying pressure.

He commandeered a conference room -- the one with the largest monitor -- and got down to business. Alone. His assigned MX was standing by along the bullpen’s far wall. No way was John sharing the investigation with it. It was not his partner. Dorian was John’s partner, but Dorian wasn’t here. Couldn’t be here.

John squinted past his frustration and glared at the traffic cam footage. He could just make out Riley scuffing along the street. He looked to be alone. John waited. Waited. Waited some more, but nobody followed him. So… maybe the attacker had anticipated him?

He hit the playback button and started again. This time thirty minutes before Riley showed up.

Sure enough, a figure (probably male, average height, strong build, age indeterminate) wearing a dark hoodie and jeans and toting a weighted backpack ducked into the alley… and didn’t come back out. Well, it wasn’t a dead end down there. He could have been taking a shortcut to his destination. But John ran the guy down anyway, tracking him back, back, back through drone footage and ATM cameras and whatnot.

To a liquor store.

The Riley investigators had already done the legwork here: they’d gotten a copy of the store’s surveillance video recordings, so John could see -- as plain as day -- that the guy bought a massive jug of cheap liquor and paid with bitcoin. He didn’t touch anything else in the store. Even the doors opened and closed automatically. So. No fingerprints. No trace DNA.

Right. Time to see where this guy had come from before he’d made a pit stop at Glugs-R-Us.

John perked up when he glimpsed the guy first putting the hoodie on barely within range of a traffic intersection camera. The image wasn’t much -- just a stretch of an arm through the sleeve as he juggled the not-yet-full backpack in his opposite hand. It was little more than a flash on the screen, but John caught a glimpse of blond hair. Short and straight. A right ear. Unpierced.

He jumped back further to see what the previous camera offered. A forty-something blond man emerging from the subway entrance with the evening crowd. The train had probably been an express given the number of disembarking passengers. There was enough here for facial rec, but John went back even further.

And frowned. The cam in the train car where blondie had been riding showed not just him, but another blonde man. Short hair. Unpierced right ear. Same jeans. John couldn’t tell the difference between their backpacks, either. Each bag was partially full, so he couldn’t rule out who had a hoodie in theirs and who didn’t.

Shit. Which guy had the investigators picked up for questioning? John ran facial rec on both. The first guy -- Marius Owen -- had a small dry cleaning business. He volunteered at homeless shelters, and John remembered the Strawman case. Glen Dunbar had picked out his victims at precisely those locations.

Shit, not again. John shook his head in disappointment. For all humanity. Because although there was nothing to admire about murder, the utter lack of originality was soul-crushing.

But John had one more ID to run and the system churned out none other than Barnley Burdock. Son of Matthew Burdock and suddenly John knew that he had seen this guy’s face before. He opened up the Nag website and browsed through the PR bullshit until he found what he was looking for. A promotional video that John had listlessly viewed before making the trip out to the Ag Zone.

He played it a second time, fast forwarding through the parts that focused on the machinery and composting process until he got to the interviews.

Mattie expounded, “Here at NaturAg, the future is a family business. We’re investing in cleaner streets, healthier crops, and the next generation.”

Beside him, his son Barnley smiled charmingly for the camera. Patting his father on the shoulder, he proudly claimed, “Turning waste into a better tomorrow. This isn’t just a company, it’s a calling.”

John paused the video.

**_**“It’s a calling.”** _ **

He studied Barnley’s face.

**_**“It’s a calling.”** _ **

And he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something there. Some glint of superiority. Not unlike the tilt of Laura Smythe’s chin or the arch of Regina Smythe’s brows. That look people got when they were looking at garbage. They’d looked at John that way. Did Barnley look at the city’s homeless the same?

Maybe John should ask him.


	7. Dumpster Diving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: GROSS (all the Gross FOREVER -- seriously, do NOT be eating anything when you get to the second part of this chapter)

The drive back out into the Ag Zone took longer than John remembered. And with every mile, the niggling suspicion that the wrong guy had been brought in for questioning dug at the soft parts of John’s instincts. Someone who looked an awful lot like Maius Owen had been riding in the same car, and then someone had been walking pretty closely behind Marius Owen when he’d come out of the subway. Someone that the nearby camera hadn’t gotten a clear shot of. Someone that could be Barnley Burdock.

The only thing John could point to and wholeheartedly approve of was the current lack of media. The camera drones had tried to keep up with the cruiser, but once John had driven outside of signal range, they’d dropped back. Waiting in a swarm for his return to civilization. Yippee.

“Detective Kennex, do you anticipate difficulty at the waste disposal facility?” John was almost glad when the MX broke the silence… until John heard the words coming out of the thing’s mouth: “Your blood pressure has been steadily elevating in correlation with proximity to our destination.”

“No, I’m not expecting trouble,” John grudgingly replied because he didn’t have anything besides a hunch to go on, but when he belatedly clocked the implication of his denial, he changed his answer to “Yes. It’s a possibility” before the MX could report this as some sort of medical problem that John ought to get treatment for. John was not spending the next day in the clinic. Nothing was going to cut into his time with Dorian. Nothing, damn it.

“Would you like me to put in a request for backup?”

That was going a bit far. “No. It’s just--I’m going to be asking Barnley Burdock a few questions.”

The MX considered that for a moment. A streak of red light pulsed along its cheek. “I have notified the local sheriff’s office of our status and requested that a unit be placed on standby.”

John wanted to protest. He could handle this on his own. He was going to handle this on his own. But. Tomorrow was his day off with Dorian. Why not play it safe. So what if he ended up getting some grief from Paul over it. Big deal. Dorian would be happy about John putting his reckless streak on the back burner for a day.

It was nearly five o’clock by the time John turned onto the facility drive. The parking lot they’d used earlier only had a couple of cars, but the processing plant was still huffing and puffing steam from its pipes, so somebody was hard at work. Probably Barnley Burdock, the second shift manager.

John wasn’t surprised to see the main offices locked up for the day. A sign pointed visitors toward the action happening in the far pole barn.

The company had made an effort to make the facility look “green” -- murals by amateur hands of forests and animals scrolled along the sheet metal walls above the brick foundation. The paint was peeling and probably had been for years.

John found the entrance. The MX pressed the call button.

Thirty seconds later, unit 1127 pressed it again.

And then again.

John was about to shoo the robot away and just lean on the damn thing when a voice scritched and scratched its way out of a rusty-looking speaker.

“Good evening! What can I do for you?”

“Detective John Kennex. I stopped by earlier and spoke with the elder Mr. Burdock. Came up with a few more questions maybe you can help me with.”

“Oh, sure, sure. Let me buzz you through. This is Barnley Burdock, by the way. Just let me pause the operation here and I’ll be right with you. Help yourself to some lemonade.”

Lemonade? Before John could do more than blink, a light flashed above the door followed almost immediately by the sound of a lock popping open. The door swung open on a spring -- handy for guys with muck-covered gloves.

Their boots clattered on the metal grating that made up the entryway floor. It stretched out straight ahead and another branched off to the right. To the left was a boot washing spigot and then, amazingly enough, a tiled parlor with a sports pitcher of lemonade. The cups claimed to be made of recycled paper. There were house plants and eco-friendly lighting. The molded plastic lawn chairs were a bit of an environmentally friendly fail, though. John glanced around for a pink flamingo lawn ornament and was frankly disappointed when he found none.

As John surveyed the space, he was pleasantly surprised that he could breathe freely in here. Whatever system they were using to deal with the smell of dumpster contents was damn effective.

The man that John had come to see emerged from between two behemoths of machinery, snapping his gloves into a holder on his belt. His coveralls were remarkably clean.

“Detective, hi! I’m Barnley. Beelee for short. Just let me wash up here.”

John waited while Beelee splashed around under the spigot and dried his hands on a handkerchief. He then offered his right hand for John to shake.

“You said you had some more questions. How can I help?”

“There seems to be a bit of confusion back at the precinct over the waste treatment process. How easy would it be for a body to find its way into one of these things?” He nodded toward the metal monsters that crowded together under the roof. “I mean, you’d have noticed if a body got picked up by accident and brought out here, right?”

Beelee laughed. “Oh, man. Those schematics are terrible, right? It took me ages to make heads or tails of them. But, right, OK -- in answer to your question, it’s impossible for human remains to end up going through one of these things. Manufacturer guarantees it. And, government regulation, I think? Why don’t I show you, and your MX can give it a once-over. Make sure it is operating the way it’s supposed to.”

John smiled. “Well, I did drive all the way out here.”

Beelee chuckled and motioned for John to follow him. “An excuse to get out of the city wasn’t enough?”

“Not for my boss, no.”

“Oh, I hear you!”

John kept an eye open for factory staff, but after about ten meters of not seeing another soul, John wondered aloud, “Your guys on break? I saw some cars out in the lot.”

“Ah, well, my son’s up in the foreman’s office keeping an eye on the gauges for me. And we’ve got a couple of drivers still bringing in loads for processing. But yeah, we’re winding down. The neighbors like us to be done by six so they can have their porch swing sunsets without the steam.” He waved a hand up at the pipes.

“Sure. Sure,” John muttered. “Besides, if you’re going to be doing pickups the next morning, you’ve got to have yourself an early night, right?”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt. We don’t actually start pickups until after morning rush hour, but…”

“I was surprised your dad’s still hauling in. Spry fella, isn’t he?”

Beelee agreed with a laugh and a nod.

“You been out recently?” John asked lightly.

“Oh, sure. Tuesday.”

John’s jaw twitched. “You run into any trouble? People giving you a hard time over the bodies?”

He shrugged. “Just a bit of the evil eye here and there. Can’t say I blame them. Not entirely. Still, we’re not the bad guys here. None of the other waste management companies are finding bodies in their bins.”

“That they’ve admitted to,” John said, just to play along, which earned him an appraising look from Beelee.

“Yeah, there is that.” He nodded for John to come around the edge of the machine. “Well, here we are. The console access is right here. Your MX can plug in and give us a reading.”

John looked to where Beelee pointed.

He didn’t see anything resembling an access panel or a console. But he did hear a sharp, metallic creak from overhead.

“MX!” he hollered, jumping back just as a company dumpster bin tipped off the top edge of the processor.

The MX looked up.

A flash of red on its cheek.

**_**CRASH!** _ **

The crunch and snap of breaking android bits was obliterated by the hollow ringing of the empty metal bin.

John’s eardrums vibrated so hard he had to squint past the sensation.

A gun in John’s hand. He sighted. Bellowed, “Do not move! Put your hands--”

Beelee’s hands came up. Along with a canister and nozzle.

Myklon red!?

**_**Psssssht!** _ **

John gagged, gasped, oh God the smell. It was unlike anything he’d ever--oh, God.

He poured his entire focus into pulling the trigger as the world spun in its axis, tilted sideways, and then crashed hard. The clatter of metal grating. The bite of each cross hatch against John’s body. A blurry closeup of the factory floor. What? Why--his knees had folded? This--he wasn’t standing. Couldn’t stand. Couldn’t move.

John struggled to keep his eyes open, watched the gun fall free from his numb fingers. And then…

Nothingness.

* * *

**_**Clang!** _ **

John startled, jerking awake on a groan that turned into a violent retch. He experienced a brief moment of regret for not having had a banana at the conclusion of lunch. He’d once heard that they tasted pretty much the same on the way back up.

Sushi sure didn’t.

John tried to roll over, aim to the side, but he sank into soft muck. Sticky. Slimy. The stench. It filled his entire being up with foul, rancid decay.

His stomach heaved again.

Something wiggled over his left hand in the pitch darkness. Several small somethings. Maggots. Oh, God.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God--

Shallow pants. Bile burning up his throat with every inhale. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe--

**_**Whirrrrrr!** _ **

An engine. The sound of an engine starting up and suddenly John knew where he was. This was the first stage of the biodegradable waste process. He was in the Nag compactor. With all the rest of the garbage.

No! No, God damn it, no!

He fumbled for his pocket. His phone. Nothing. His penlight. Also gone. No light. He had no light and only a vague sense of direction. He squirmed and the noxious darkness squished around him. He sank further. Deeper. It was quicksand and his stomach was still trying to turn itself inside out.

Don’t struggle. Think--think, damn it--think!

Things that could be animal bones or tree branches poked at his ribs, his back, his legs. He reached out for the nearest and missed. Grabbed something that could be a spongy head of cabbage. God, he hoped it was a cabbage.

**_**Thud!** _ **

The gelatinous mass shivered. John held his breath. Gritted his teeth. Stared hard into the darkness.

**_**Click. Click. Click-click-click-click--** _ **

It was moving. At least one of the metal walls was moving. Inching closer. Something -- a long branch -- gave a damp **_**snap!**_**

John flailed. Arms and legs flying out. The toes of his left foot touched a wall. It shifted an inch closer in the time it took John to process his discovery. Shit. Shit-shit-shit! How much time did he have? Had the MX sent a 10-78: officer in need of assistance? Was anyone coming?

Yes. John had to believe that the local sheriff’s unit -- the one on standby -- was heading this way. Had to.

But would they make it here before John was completely and thoroughly pâté-ed?

Oh, God. OK. Shit this was awful, but John wrestled his panic back.

Stop. Think. Find something to brace the walls apart.

**_**Click-click-click-click--** _ **

John’s right hand bumped into the wall behind him. It was stationary, and, in the next instant, his right foot bumped into the one that wasn’t. Wait. John’s right foot. His prosthetic right foot. His fucking prosthetic leg with twenty percent more push-off power than his old one.

He drew his right knee up, hips sinking into the shifting mass and more sticks or bones poking-bending-snapping. How many shots would he have at busting through the metal wall before they turned off the machine, opened up the chamber, and shot him?

John had no weapon. No belt. No shoes. No watch. No Saint Michael medallion. No beaded leather wrist wrap. He was perfectly biodegradable -- they’d even cut out the zippers on his jacket, sweater, and pants. All he had was his leg and whatever his next move was going to be, John had to make it count.

He could kick, but he might just kick himself into a shard of cow bone. The last thing he needed was to be impaled like a kebab. He needed a firm surface at his back. He wiggled and scrabbled -- the walls were relentlessly closing in -- and a stable surface was not going to happen. The pressure was pushing him deeper or the refuse higher and pretty soon he wouldn’t be able to maneuver at all.

So. OK. Plan B.

His eyes were steaming. Tears streamed down his face. He could feel snot running from his nose as his entire body tried to expel the fumes of rot that saturated his nose, his lungs. Every nook and cranny.

He spread his arms wide and levered himself up with both feet braced against the inching wall. Waited for the hole to fill in beneath him. He wouldn’t have much time. Not much time at all and he couldn’t even suck in a deep breath to steady himself.

He was dizzy. His head was pounding. His throat burning. His entire body was a crawling, twisting mass of horror--

**_**Click-click-click-click--** _ **

Now!

John tore at his trousers, shoving them down over his right knee as his shoulders and hips sank, sank, sank.

He realized he was screaming as he wrenched the prosthetic from its socket and yanked it out of his trouser leg. The slick, synthetic surface of the limb went hard and cold and slippery in his grasp, but he held it up as straight as he could guesstimate and prayed.

Oh, God. He prayed. He prayed this thing would be enough to stop the hydraulic press, brace the walls steady, and just--

Nobody wanted to die in a dumpster. Certainly not John. He didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not here. Not yet.

\--don’t wanna die don’t wanna die don’t wanna die--

And then the far wall scooted in just enough. The prosthetic limb stopped trembling with John’s sobbing cries. It skidded an inch against the goo-covered metal and John pushed and pulled, trying to keep the leg as close to a right angle as he could. Perpendicular. The point of the toe against one wall and the top of the thigh against the other.

It held fast.

**_**Click-click-crrrick-crrrrrrrrrick!** _ **

The wall hitched, attempting a millimeter’s worth of progress before settling back and then grinding forward again, again, again, again--

The leg creaked. Something cracked. But it didn’t shatter. Didn’t bend.

John kept both hands around the ankle near his head. His other leg was buried deep in the solidifying muck and he didn’t dare try to pull himself up and out of it lest John’s weight be the proverbial last straw. If the prosthetic limb popped out of place now, John would never get it wedged back in again.

**_**Crrrrrrrrrick! Crrrrrrrrrick! Crrrrrrrrrick!** _ **

John squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t let this be how it ends.

But how long would they leave him in here? How long before they scooped up John’s gun and decided to just shoot him?

Please. Somebody.

Dorian.

No. No, John couldn’t let Dorian in here. Not here in this filthy stinking cesspit.

Please.

And then--

**_**Crrrrrrrrrick! Crrrrrrrrrick! Pssssssssh…** _ **

Pressure being released. The compactor stopped coughing and stuttering. Silence. Utter silence. John cast about for a weapon. Anything. Anything at all, but he found only slime and muck.

Well. OK, then. It was time to fight dirty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I checked, and a modern dumpster bin weighs over 1500 kg. The load-bearing capacity of an MX is over 1000 kg. So, I’m pretty sure that having a dumpster dropped on it (even from a height of 2 meters) would obliterate an MX (and this one was probably dropped from over 3 meters above ground). (God, my Internet search history is scary.)
> 
> Myklon red was used by InSyndicate (Reinhardt) in the Pilot episode to attack police officers.
> 
> Once upon a time, I came across a post (perhaps on Tumblr?) in which a fan lamented the lack of opportunities for John to use his prosthetic leg to his advantage during the TV show. (If you know the post I’m talking about, please let me know and/or link it. I desperately want to give credit where it’s due.) At the time, it struck a chord with me, but it wasn’t until I was well into writing this fan fic series that I realized how much I wanted to see that, too. So, here we are. It’s awful and I LOVE IT.


	8. Cleansing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: brief continuation of the Gross from the previous chapter

“Detective Kennex. I am unit 2044. I am here to assist you.”

John blinked. Panted. The light shining down on him was blinding and John had started flinging refuse the moment the hatch had swung open on a squeal.

“What,” he croaked.

The figure leaning over John didn’t budge. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t shoot John with his own gun. Handfuls of rancid waste plopped and dripped, raining back down onto John’s chest.

The voice steadily repeated itself: “I am unit 2044. My partner and I are here to assist you.”

“Your partner?”

“Yes. Deputy Kowolski and I received your MX’s distress call. Do you require assistance?”

“What do you think?” John snarled. “Can you pull me out?”

“Affirmative.” The MX reached in and John stretched up. He clasped the MX’s offered arm and hard, android fingers wrapped bruisingly tight around John’s wrist. It pulled and John’s entire body lifted up with a sickening squelch of fetid garbage. John tried to ignore the smell. He really did. He tried to focus on the promise of relief just there a scant meter above. But his stomach pitched and yawed. He braced his other hand on the knee of his prosthetic limb and vomited. Or rather, he tried. Nothing came up. Because everything had already come up. The front of John’s ruined and soaking sweater was covered in sick.

Oh, Jesus.

The MX reached under John’s opposite arm and, stomach caught in a helpless loop of dry heaves, John struggled for a toehold. A seat. He found both and, God damn, he was out. Perched on the edge of the compactor opening.

John fought back against the nausea and won. Air filled his lungs. His stomach stayed put.

“My leg,” he indicated, gesturing weakly to the limb bracing the metal compartment walls apart.

“I will retrieve your prosthetic limb once you are secure.”

“Shower,” John grated out. In the receding tide of panic, revulsion was taking over. John clung to his fraying control as hard as he could. He was too tired -- too absolutely exhausted to spare the energy to freak out. “I need a shower. Clean clothes.” He tugged at his trousers, still clinging to his left knee, and then promptly gave up the prospect of pulling the filthy things back on. Instead, he shoved them off. They landed on top of the biodegradable sludge with a sopping **_**plop!**_**

“There is a locker room with showers located in the southeast corner of the building.”

“Great. Take me there.” With trembling arms, John climbed and slipped his way down from the machinery. The feel of the metal floor grating squeezing rotting juice from the sock still covering his left foot was like an electric shock. He almost yelped at the stinging of nerves firing in response to solid ground and gravity, but glowered instead.

Barnley Burdock was handcuffed to a section of railing, John’s personal effects scattered around him in an incriminating debris field. Beside him, Mattie Burdock had also been restrained. Huh. Guess he’d decided to work overtime today. Maybe kill a cop while he was at it.

“I want my stuff back,” John growled at the MX, and then qualified that with “after I get cleaned up.”

“Understood. This way, Detective.”

The MX tucked itself up against John’s left side and wrapped an arm around his waist. John endured the contact with teeth gritted. Each hopping step of progress was like having his sole whapped with a meat tenderizer. God but this day was wretched. And it arguably got worse: they crossed paths with a uniformed officer on the way to the locker room.

“Deputy Kowolski,” a woman with silver-blond hair succinctly introduced herself. She was anywhere between thirty and fifty-five and steering a handcuffed teenage boy. The third generation of Burdocks. “Good to see you’re still alive. We’ll sort this out later. I’ll put a call in to your captain.”

“Maldonado,” John croaked. “Delta Division. Gonna need clothes and my other leg.”

“You got it.”

John made it to the locker room. He even managed not to slip on the concrete floor. The MX hovered as John braced himself on the wall with one hand and started yanking at his jacket with the other. “I need a plastic bag for these clothes. And bring that chair over.”

The MX did as it was told. The jacket came off easily enough, but then John had to pinch his eyes shut and mash his lips together as he forced the tangle of wet sweater up and over his head. Ugh, God. Ugh. He just about flung both the sweater and the jacket into the bag that the MX was accommodatingly holding open. Then his undershirt. Jesus, disgusting. Then his shorts, which he had to perch on the chair to slip off of his foot. The sock came with it and then he waved the android away.

“Seal that up and stick a warning on it.”

John slapped at the faucet controls and blissfully hot, clean water gushed out. He pulled himself up, bracing both hands on the wall and turning his face into the spray. And then? And then he cried. He let the tears and rage come, like thunder and lightning. His entire body shook and trembled, spine bowing, shoulders hunching and he damned those assholes -- the Burdocks -- for what they’d tried to do, for what they’d done. He damned the Wall and the pompous bastard Chromes who had built it and given gangs a veritable breeding ground to thrive. He damned InSyndicate and its rivals for turning boys and girls into cannon fodder. He damned each and every politician who started the day with a cup of perfectly brewed gourmet coffee as they schemed up new ways to kill DRNs.

Damn them. God damn them all.

“Detective, I have retrieved some articles of clothing from the trunk of our cruiser. They are likely to fit. Also, I have found a towel for you. And soap.”

John hauled in a breath so he could speak. “Give me the soap.”

Soap wrapped in a washcloth. How thoughtful.

He lathered up his hands and then plunged his sudsy fingers into his hair, one hand at a time because no way in hell was he letting go of the soap. Not even to set it on the seat of the plastic lawn chair. And John could not even entertain the thought of distancing himself from the source of running water, even if sitting down to wash would have been easier.

John was done with “easier,” damn it.

Leaning against the concrete wall, he scrubbed and rinsed and lathered and scrubbed some more, working his hair until the follicles ached and his skin was pink and stinging from the friction. The bar of soap turned into a sliver, but the water was still hot and the mindless white noise was a promise of numbness.

John never wanted to move.

But he had to. While it was clear that a crime had occurred here, Kowolski would need John to give her the details. Plus, John had a report to file.

And he still hadn’t talked to Maldonado. Or called Dorian.

Sighing, John gave himself one more once-over, scrubbing out his ears for the tenth time. Chafing at his fingernails and toenails. Every crease and wrinkle got exfoliated.

And when he was sure he’d gotten everything -- a minimum of five times -- John fumbled the taps closed. A towel appeared in his line of sight. And rather than get angry at the MX for hovering like a creep, John simply accepted it. Because it wouldn’t have been terribly smart of John to hop around on wet concrete. Yeah, he could be sensible. Sometimes.

He dried himself off and rubbed the water from his hair. Then he wiped down the seat of the chair and put on the gray sweatpants the MX passed him. “No socks, huh?” John wearily guessed.

“I have brought your boots.”

“That’ll work. Give me the left one.”

The MX had also fetched the rest of John’s things, and as each familiar item settled back in place, so did pieces of John. The pendant from his father. His wristwatch. His beaded cuff. The MX passed him a white hoodie with the sheriff’s department logo on the front. It was a little snug, but it had a front pouch pocket. There was just enough room for his badge and penlight. He shrugged into his shoulder holster, the weight of his department-issued firearm grounding him.

Last but not least was his phone. John thumbed it on and saw three messages: Maldonado wanted him to check in as soon as he was ready; Paul was en route with Dorian; Dorian was bringing clothes and his leg and trying not to freak out.

John called his captain first. He needed to warm-up, get some momentum going, before he could be steady for Dorian.

“John. Are you all right?”

“Never better.”

“John, don’t be a tough guy. I need your status.”

John huffed and tunneled shaking fingers through his damp hair. “Yeah, I’m OK. I don’t need medical attention. I’ll get my report to you--” He checked his watch. “--by the half hour. Then I just want to start my day off.”

“You do that. You’ve earned it. Let me know if you need anything.” There was a slight pause as Sandra checked her own timepiece. “Detective Paul and Dorian should be there in about twenty minutes.”

“OK. Thanks.”

“Good work today, John. I’m glad you’re safe.”

Yeah, he was, too.

He hung up and considered his phone. The next call was going to be a doozy, but John could think of no reason to dial Paul first. So he took the plunge and speed dialed Dorian.

“John!”

“I’m OK. I’m really OK, D.”

“We’re eighteen minutes out--”

“That’ll give me just enough time to give my statement to the deputy and file my incident report.”

Dorian hesitated a moment, digesting what John was really saying: John could work. John had to work. As long as John had work, he could keep it together.

“I’ll want the whole story, man. I mean it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’ll get it. You driving?”

“No, Detective Paul is.”

John wasn’t surprised; he wouldn’t have let a distraught DRN behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, either. “OK. I’ll be here when you get here.”

“You’d better.”

The connection cut out and John snickered. Dorian always had to have the last damn word -- well, he gave it his best effort, anyway. How ridiculous was it that John loved that about him?

Sliding the phone into the crowded hoodie pocket, John stood up from the chair. “OK, MX. Take me to see Deputy Kowolski. And don’t forget my other boot.”

The sheriff’s deputy was scrolling through something on her department-issued tablet, talking with someone back at base via comm channel, when John made an appearance at the processing plant lobby. His clothes were in one evidence bag and his leg was in another. Everything was sitting right on the table, next to the recycled paper cups and jug of lemonade.

“Copy that,” Kowolski said into her mic. “I’ve got the detective here now. We’ll get this updated asap. Kowolski out.”

She held out her hand and John shook it before lowering himself into a seat. “I bet you’ve got questions,” he surmised and her thin lips quirked.

“Sugar pie, you can say that again.”

John laughed. Had to. Because, holy hell, she was calling him “sugar pie” after he’d been dunked in nasty sauce and left to marinate.

But the moment of mirth was good. Needful. With that brief release, John was ready to focus and get down to the nitty-gritty.

John had filled her in on the case files that had brought him out to the Ag Zone, narrated his first interview with Matthew Burdock, and filed a detailed account of his encounter with Beelee when John heard the familiar sound of a cruiser engine on approach.

“That’ll be Detective Paul,” John said with a glance at the time, “bringing my fiancé.”

“Out to the scene?”

“He’s a police officer, too.”

“Ah. Congratulations. And good luck,” she added with a wry smile that John shared because, yeah, a cop’s life wasn’t easy. Dealing with a significant other’s cop-life was harder. And John had signed up for both.

“Thanks.” Before she could get back to work, John remembered to add “I want to know what Barnley doused me with. That gas.”

“Found a couple of canisters. We’ll get it to the lab and get you some answers.”

“Sounds good,” John said, bracing himself at the sound of rapid footsteps. Dorian wasn’t sprinting or anything, but that had to be one hell of a speed-walk.

And then there he was, standing in the open doorway of the compost factory, scanning the interior and, as soon as his gaze reached John, John knew he was in trouble.

Dorian closed the distance between them in four long strides and yanked John into his arms. For the sake of his balance -- and because he just wanted to, damn it -- John returned the embrace. 110%.

“You’re scanning me, aren’t you,” he accused.

“You’re damn right I am.”

John let him get on with it. All the better for delaying the weather report he just knew was queued up and ready to go. Yeah, John was pretty sure Dorian was going to read him the riot act. As usual.

He closed his eyes and leaned a little harder on the DRN’s stronger frame. Dorian and weather reports and normal. John could have all that again. He resolved to never take it for granted.


	9. Fulcrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Sexytimes!!

“What were you thinking, John?”

He and Dorian were in John’s cruiser, making the drive back to the city while the forensics team logged evidence and Paul supervised. The perpetrators were divided between Paul’s cruiser and Kowolski’s. John didn’t care who did the interrogations so long as John never had to deal with those barmy yahoos again.

He’d changed into the clothes Dorian had brought him and returned the borrowed sweats to Deputy Kowolski. He was wearing his old leg and he had his hands on the steering wheel. Now that John had given Dorian the whole story, he was good and ready to pretend the last four hours had never happened. But Dorian wasn’t going to let him.

“What was I thinking? You read my report and you just got the limited edition blow-by-blow version,” John answered with a shrug that he really knew better than to try and pull off because it just infuriated Dorian even more.

“Your report. Yes. I was particularly interested in the part where you followed a murder suspect into unfamiliar territory and let yourself be surrounded by heavy machinery that you didn’t understand with the location of other perpetrators or bystanders unknown.” Dorian tiled his chin and nodded once. Decisively. “Yes. That portion of your account could be a little better explained.”

John flexed his hands. “Look, I played it cool, OK? I said we’d come out to assess the machinery -- that sort of required me and the MX to get close to the machines.”

“It was a stupid play, John.”

“Oh, OK. And if I’d said I was out for an afternoon drive and just happened to think up a couple of questions to ask--” John gestured to the dark fields beyond the cruiser headlights. “--yeah, **_**that**_** would’ve gone over real smooth. I could ask questions over the phone, D. Even that idiot Barnley would’ve figured it out.”

“Well, I’d say he figured it out, regardless.”

Yeah. John couldn’t fight him on that one. “Jesus. Look, I didn’t go in there with a death wish, OK?”

“But you had misgivings.” Dorian gave him a long, solemn look. “Your MX called in a request for backup-on-standby. That probably saved your life tonight.”

“Yeah.” The MX had definitely done that. John hadn’t imagined that little zing of red light on its cheek right before it’d been pancaked. “But it wasn’t the main thing -- the immediate thing -- that saved my life.” With a glance at Dorian, he said quietly, “The leg you gave me. I’m sorry it’s busted. But I had to.”

He took a hand off the wheel and reached for Dorian’s. Their fingers met halfway and threaded together tight.

“I’m glad,” Dorian told him softly. “I’m glad you had it. And I’m very glad it came through for you,” he drew in a deliberate breath, “when you needed it.”

When John had needed it. No, not “it.” They weren’t talking about the leg. John had needed Dorian because Dorian never would have let him waltz into that situation in the first place. He would have taken one look at the facility and Noped hard. If John’s excuse for the field trip had been an evaluation of the machines, Dorian would have insisted on bringing a team of technicians along. Because that was what they would have done on the other side of the Wall and Dorian had brought those lessons home with him.

Looked like John still had a lot to learn.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. This time with more than just remorse for a damaged gift.

Dorian squeezed John’s hand. “This makes us work harder. Right?”

“Right.” John squeezed Dorian’s hand back and then asked, “Tell me about your day. Everything go OK with James’ operation?”

He listened as Dorian obliged, describing the process concisely but adding in an appraisal of Rudy’s skill and Dorian’s own sense of accomplishment at helping his fellow DRN recover.

“Not that I’d ever want to quit being a police officer,” Dorian said, “but if I had to, I think I might like to do something like that.”

“Robotics, you mean? Assisting Rudy?”

“No, man. First aid. Maybe search and rescue. That sort of thing.”

Yeah, of course. A job that was just as dangerous and heartbreaking as being a cop, but without any weapons for defense. But John wasn’t going to let himself get all bent out of shape over a hypothetical.

Up ahead, on the outskirts of the city, John spotted a motor lodge, remembered the threat of hovering media drones, and blurted, “How’s your charge?”

“I’m good for another twelve hours. Why?”

“I, ah, I don’t really want to go home. Yet.” He looked over at Dorian and received an understanding smile.

“The press will probably be waiting for us.”

John agreed. “And I really want to know that I’m alone with you tonight.”

Dorian’s smile widened and a series of lights zipped over his cheek. “You’re in luck. This place up here has a four-star rating online. Simple. Clean. Quiet.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

It was pretty close. The room was a far (and welcome) cry from the bitcoin hovel in Koln. The carpet was a stain-free Berber. The curtains on the window were thick and blocked the light. The door had a deadbolt and a peephole. Both beds had sets of crisp, white sheets that smelled of detergent. There was shampoo, conditioner, and body soap lined up in the combination bathtub/shower.

John’s scalp itched from the astringent hand soap that he’d used at the waste treatment plant. “I’m taking another shower,” he announced.

“I’ll see what we have for food around here.”

John’s stomach had forgotten what food was. He grimaced. “Nothing sounds good, D.”

“You’ve gotta eat, man. Plain cheese pizza?”

Oh, God. No. No way never again.

Taking in John’s reaction, Dorian nodded. “There are some shops just down the road. I’ll pick up a variety.”

“Nothing--” God, this was going to sound insane. “Nothing with, like, an odor. OK?” Just the thought of Italian spices made John’s stomach want to roll over and die. “Nothing raw. Or--or… wet.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with.”

What he came up with was a box of animal crackers and cartons of unsweetened jasmine tea. The kind of things that got packed in kids’ lunch boxes or zoo go-bags. Tiny plastic straw included. Prying the dinky little thing from its wrapper didn’t make John feel like a kid again. More like a dumb, lumbering giant. But he swatted Dorian’s hands away and assembled the stupid thing by himself. Just like a big boy.

“We’re on the evening news broadcast,” Dorian murmured, curled and cuddled around him as John bit the heads off of all the elephants he could find in the little circus train box. The media monitor in the room was dark, so Dorian was keeping up with the latest via the network access inside his head.

“Oh, yeah?” John garbled. An avenging elephant trunk poked him right in the roof of his mouth. Ow. Weren’t these things supposed to be safe for ages three and up?

“Yeah. I didn’t tell you last night -- that shirt looks good on you.”

John leered. “You like that one, huh?”

“I do. I also like the way this one will look on the hotel carpet.”

John almost hurt himself laughing. “Oh, my God. D. Where the hell are you getting these awful--wait. It’s Paul, isn’t it? Is he trying to show you how to be smooth?”

By way of answer, Dorian nuzzled against John’s neck. “Well, generally speaking,” he mused, “actions do speak louder than words with you. Perhaps I should just stick to that.”

Perhaps he should. Oh. Oh, wow. When had Dorian figured out just how to tease John’s neck so that shivers raced up and down his spine, arching his back and making his nipples ache for friction? John didn’t even bother to slow the proceedings down. He stretched back and into Dorian’s solid warmth. Absently tossed the crackers and the empty carton of tea onto the nightstand when Dorian’s palm slid under John’s shirt and started scrunching it up his belly, bunching the fabric against his nipples and hell yes. More of that.

Warm breath on John’s ear and Dorian’s low murmur. “John, make love to me.”

His whole body flushed with arousal at the demand. There was just one problem: “No olive oil.”

“This might work.”

A small tube of personal lubricant found its way into John’s grasp. Dorian had already opened the seal on it, too. “Pushy.”

“That’s your job tonight.” Sitting up, Dorian tossed aside his off-duty T-shirt and popped open the button on his trousers. “Come on, John.” He leaned down for a sudden, hot kiss and then pressed his forehead to John’s. “Push me.”

**_**Into me.** _ **

Oh, Jesus. John’s hands shook as he wiggled and writhed out of his shorts and T-shirt. Dorian nudged him down onto the bed and crouched over him, sucking on John’s earlobe, nibbling his jaw, and just basically being a hot nuisance as John fumbled with the cap on the tube. And then his fingers were slicked and sliding down a hot crevasse between shapely twin curves. Dorian panted hard -- a burst of hot air -- when John found his target and--sweet Jesus--slipped inside.

Although it was supposed to be John’s job to push, it was Dorian who lost patience first. Shifting back and gliding his own slippery hand over John’s length, and then taking him inside in one long, slow motion of relentless gravity.

Oh, God. The feel -- hot and tight -- the pressure so perfect -- squeezing in from every single direction -- surrounded by heat and pleasure and so good. John opened his eyes and looked up at Dorian, awed. Nothing bad could touch him here in the presence of Dorian’s bright eyes and delighted smile.

And then he started moving. Rocking to and fro so minutely. Tugging at John’s cock with every shift. John groaned and returned the favor, dragging his gelled fingertips along Dorian’s arousal. Lights flickered beneath the DRN’s skin from temple to kneecaps. Starbursts and streaks that John chased with his other hand. Coaxed out along the crease of synthetic muscle.

A delicate dance that John arched his back into, sinking in just a little deeper, and Dorian moaned at the increased contact of their flesh.

The soft lights in the room on Dorian’s dusky skin.

The slackening of his jaw as John rolled his hips around and up.

The line of the DRN’s throat as his head fell back.

John added more slick to his fingers until Dorian’s length was glistening in John’s loose fist.

So beautiful.

“John,” he gasped and then gritted his teeth, “should I wait for you?”

“No, no, D. Don’t wait,” he rasped, raw and aching with desire. “C’mon now. Show me how good it feels for you.”

He did. Ripples and waves: tiny pinpricks of light washed and sputtered from Dorian’s flickering eyes -- gold then purple then gold again -- all the way down to his fingertips and toes.

Incredible.

John nudged him through it, marveling at how every motion of his body produced echoing bursts until everything faded back to uninterrupted flesh. John stopped moving then, and rubbed Dorian’s arm. Up to his shoulder and neck, down his strong back.

“Scale of one to ten?” John teased.

Dorian sputtered a laugh. Burbled a bit and puffed his cheeks. “I can’t even begin to answer that. How can you ask me to think right now, man? My processors are still offline.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” Dorian fidgeted meaningfully, but then frowned. “You didn’t come with me.”

No, he hadn’t. But he could feel his arousal waning nonetheless. As if he had come. “Nope. Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“What--you think we’re done?” John was just getting started. He proved it, too, after an interlude of quiet teasing and wandering hands. He urged Dorian to lie flat on his back, rewarded him with deep, focused kisses, and then propped the DRN’s hips up on a pillow. It was time for Round Two.

Slick and slow and steady. John’s hands traced over synthetic skin, finding especially receptive sensors to tickle with his fingertips. Kisses that made Dorian wiggle and purr and growl even as his pelvis canted forward in a demand for more.

As John braced himself over his lover, DRN fingertips curled around his hip and slid into the crease of John’s ass.

“Ah-hah! Fuck,” John panted, grabbing for the wrist attached to that questing hand. “You keep that up and you’re gonna get fucked blind, D.”

“Promise?” A long finger grazed deep enough to send an electric jolt through John.

“Grrr. What happened to making love?” John breathlessly demanded, a last ditch effort to keep up his end of the deal.

“We’ve made it,” Dorian assured him, sliding the tip of his nose along John’s. “I feel your love, John. Now give me your lust.”

Again, that touch at John’s entrance and this time he didn’t hold back. He buckled and bucked in on a snarl. Teeth pressing against Dorian’s throat, he fucked into his lover hard and fast and when Dorian’s heavy legs wound up and around John’s back in surrender, in welcome, in pure fantastic greed for more, John gave it. He gave his all.

The heat and need and Dorian. John’s entire focus on the body wrapped around his. Dorian. Dorian’s overjoyed gasps and harsh, searingly hot exhales. The temperature of Dorian’s hands skyrocketing unintentionally as his emotive processors struggled to release some of the building heat.

John licked and nipped his way up to Dorian’s ear. “Feel this? Feel me?”

Dorian nodded jerkily.

“This what you do to me. Just you.”

A soft whimper. Strong, android hands clutched John’s hips close and tight.

“You make me want,” John rumbled. “Want **_**you.**_** Want to be better for you. For both of us.”

“John!” The light show was starting and when John felt the tingle begin at the base of his own spine, he didn’t quash it. He let it build, let it slowly branch out along his nerve endings.

This moment -- this was the calm before the storm. John forced his eyes open, framed Dorian’s face in his hands. Chests pressed together, John’s elbows gouged into the mattress, hips slapping hard and steady against Dorian’s body. Conscious thought started fading as completion surged forward; John gasped: “I wanna be yours. You want me, D?”

Dorian’s brow scrunched and his lips trembled open. “Yes. Yes, John--John--John!”

And then came the rush. It slammed into John, roaring in his ears and sparking in his vision. Scalp, fingers, toes burned and prickled with every pounding heartbeat. Intensity pulsed through John’s veins and muscles, squeezing his lungs and taking over his entire body as he emptied-emptied-emptied into Dorian and Dorian’s lights flickered and flashed, blurring through John’s unfocused vision.

“Oh,” he nearly squeaked, folding down onto Dorian’s chest as his hips lazily twitched with slowing momentum, prolonging the heat and connection and pleasure.

“John,” Dorian said, petting his back, insistently pulling him closer. “John.”

A plea. Please. John.

John let his full weight bear Dorian down into the bedding. Let Dorian hold on tight. So tight. “Yeah, D. You’ve got me,” he vowed, grabbing onto the DRN’s shoulders and pressing exhausted, sticky kisses to his skin. “I’m right here and you’ve got me.”

And finally, John was starting to feel -- deep down feel -- the grip of the day’s horror loosen. Dorian had him and John was back in control.

Tomorrow was going to be a good day.


	10. Backslide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: PTSD, Gross (flashbacks)

_The stutter of gunfire in the distance._

_A courtyard surrounded by walls and windows. Figures in black firing from each and every vantage point._

_“John! I’ve been hit!”_

_That voice. No. No, not-- “Pelham!”_

_But it was Pelham. Martin Pelham was down, sprawled beside a cruiser, blood gushing from a wound John couldn’t see. “They were ready for us. How did they know? How did they know?”_

_John had no answer to that. “It could always get worse.”_

_It got worse._

_A light grenade clanked and clattered toward them. The cold certainty of death. John looked to Pelham. His partner’s eyes were glassy. John grabbed his arm, pulled it over his shoulders, and stood._

_Fell._

_John’s right leg was gone. Blown off. When? HOW? His head spun as blood pulsed out onto the dirty asphalt._

_And then the grenade started counting down:_

**_**Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!** _ **

_No escape. There was no escape. The way John had come -- he spun toward it, twisting his torso and preparing to drag himself by his elbows -- but it was closed off now. Nothing but a wall of blood-splattered concrete--_

**_**Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!** _ **

_Now the walls were moving, shifting, grinding inward. All four walls inched closer. The scent of blood thickened in the air. Pelham’s head landed on John’s shoulder--_

**_**Chirp! Chirp!** _ **

_His partner’s skull rotted beneath John’s nose. Hair and flesh falling away and maggots bursting forth on a noxious spray of filth--_

**_**Chirp!** _ **

_A breathless pause._

_And then an explosion of white light and John clung to Pelham’s slimy corpse. Screaming with his eyes shut to drown out the thunderous grinding that was almost on top of him: the walls--the walls--the walls--!_

“John. John! Wake up. You’re OK.”

John stopped struggling, stopped fighting with the sheets and pillows that his mind had convinced him was Pelham’s body. “The smell,” John gasped, biting down and swallowing back against the churning contents of his belly. “Do you--oh, God. The smell.”

He gagged and strong hands hauled John toward the edge of the bed toward the light of a glowing lamp. A small dust box yawned dim and empty below. The smear of something that might have been dried ketchup on the interior wall. The shiny speckle of sticky soft drink syrup. The smell…!

His entire body clenched and heaved. Oh, God. Oh, God.

He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see.

No, no, that last bit was wrong. It had to be wrong. John’s eyes were squeezed shut, but… what if he opened them to that disgusting darkness? What if he was back in the compactor? What if he’d never left?

He screamed, sobbed into the garbage bin.

“John. John, you’re OK. Look at me, man.”

“Ugh. No. No--”

“Yes. I’m right here. Open your eyes and see me, John.”

Those strong fingers gripping his shoulders. So constant. Divergent from the reality he feared. John groped toward those hands and discovered arms. Not walls. Not slimy, skeletal remains. He opened his eyes.

Dorian.

Dorian was crouched in front of him and patiently insisted, “It’s four a.m. and you just had a nightmare. You are OK.”

Yeah. Yeah, John could see that. He was in a hotel room. The curtains were shut and there was a beam of light spilling out from under the bathroom door.

The bathroom.

John wiped at his mouth, grimacing when a trail of lumpy saliva smeared from his chin and onto his wrist. “Ugh. Shower. I need--I need a shower.”

Dorian reached over and turned up the light on the bedside lamp as he nudged John into a sitting position. “OK. Let me get your leg.”

John sat up and panted, sucked in shallow breaths and tried to convince himself that he wasn’t smelling the inside of the waste compactor. But he was. He was.

A whimper escaped him as Dorian locked his prosthetic in place. “What can I do, John?”

“The smell. Get rid of the smell. Please.”

“OK. Take a shower. It’ll be gone by the time you come out.” Dorian held out his hands and John pulled himself upright, allowed Dorian to aim him in the direction of the bathroom. “It’ll be gone. I promise.”

Oh. OK.

John focused on putting one foot in front of the other until the hot water of the shower blasted over his face and shoulders, burning away the listless fog, chasing off the niggling itch that made John press his hands to every stable surface, testing -- eyes wide, staring hard at shadows. He gasped into the hissing spray and suddenly--

He flushed with shame. Oh, God. What the hell was wrong with him. He didn’t know, but it made him wash his hair twice, dig sudsy fingers along the ridges of his ears, and if John could have peeled himself out of his own skin, he would have.

He couldn’t even hide in the bathroom until checkout time. When the water turned lukewarm, John forced himself to step out and towel off. He emerged on a dragon’s breath of steam. Dorian had already laid out a clean set of clothes at the foot of the hotel bed.

John expected Dorian to give him the third-degree. Or at least put him in the hot seat for an interrogation. Or an intervention. Something. But the DRN was standing at the window, peering past the curtain into the distance.

“What do you got there? A UFO?” John tiredly snarked, perversely disappointed at not being the center of attention… even though being the center of attention and the recipient of coddling would have annoyed the hell out of him.

Dorian gestured him over and John complied, pulling a Henley on over his head. He was barefoot but otherwise dressed. Hopefully dressed enough for whatever had captured Dorian’s attention.

“Look,” the DRN breathed in reverence and John crowded up behind him, pressed his chest to Dorian’s back and peered over the android’s shoulder.

The sun was rising.

The sky was an unfettered dome and, from their third floor vantage point, the recently sown fields sloped gracefully away, stretching and searching to the ends of the Earth. Smudges of trees softened the horizon, which blazed with brilliant red and gold. Clouds shimmered and swam in the colorful currents. And above, an expanse of delicate green faded inevitably into blue and then pale indigo.

John curved his arms around Dorian’s waist and just watched. It was a hell of a view. Awe-inspiring compared to the thin slice of sky Dorian could see from his apartment window. Not that Dorian had had much of a chance to assess the dawn show from there.

The sun emerged from the edge of the land, one breath, one blink, one heartbeat at a time. John traced circles absentmindedly over Dorian’s shirt, caressing the skin and musculature beneath. Subconsciously tracking back and forth. Like a pendulum.

And when nothing but blues and bright, burning orb remained, John said, “I want to go home.”

“I want us both home,” Dorian agreed.

Yeah. Low charge was a factor. Good thing they both had the day off. TGIF.

They skipped the continental breakfast and checked out. John drove back to the city and, with a stop at a 24-hour convenience store, he collected some dry, non-perishables that he hoped he’d be able to keep down. Saltines. Chocolate chip cookies. More unsweetened iced tea. And, yes, animal crackers.

Dorian took the bag from him as they passed over their home threshold. The scent of dew evaporating into the warming air followed them in. There had been no reporters camped out front -- not even a drone hovering in the sky -- and that went a long way toward easing the knot between John’s shoulders.

“You, bed,” Dorian instructed, setting the shopping bag on the counter and placing the tea in the refrigerator. John let him do whatever. In all honesty, John wasn’t ready to stick his head in his own fridge. Just… not yet.

“You, charger,” John bantered back, sitting down with a **_**whuff!**_** He peeled his shirt off and tossed it onto the duffel bag that Dorian had over-packed the evening before. There were still a couple of pairs of clean underwear and a ball of tube socks inside. Speaking of socks, those came off next. Then the jeans. Finally, the leg.

Dorian put it on the charger for him, tucked him into bed, and gave him a slow kiss as the mattress cradled John’s aching body. Familiar and comforting. Safe. He fell asleep holding Dorian’s hand.

And woke to the soft strum of a guitar chord followed by an achingly sweet melody that was deftly picked out. The song caught John’s interest and he cracked an eye open on a burgeoning smile instead of a pained groan. Dark clouds had rolled in since dawn and a soft drizzle puckered the surface of the lake. The bedside clock said it was 9:41 a.m. and Dorian was serenading him.

John rolled over a bit and patted the mattress, which sank when Dorian sat down, his fingers never faltering. It wasn’t a long song, which was good, because John’s stomach was painfully empty and his bladder uncomfortably full.

“I like that,” John murmured when the last note was fading. “What is it?”

“An old Russian folk song.” Dorian’s knowing, lopsided smile teased John into sitting up and tracing his fingertips along Dorian’s cheek and ear, cupping the back of his head and leaning in for a chaste kiss.

And then John really had to get moving.

“Coffee?” Dorian asked.

John nodded, grabbed for the side of the sheets that Dorian wasn’t sitting on, and hauled himself over to the edge of the bed. He needed a moment to sit up and gain his bearings, let his sleep-muddled head figure out which way was up, and when he finally felt brave enough to try standing, he reached for his leg. Just there on the charger.

“Charging: incomplete,” the machine warned him, but John ignored it. Just like he was pretty sure Dorian had ignored his own charger’s griping; no way was the DRN at 100% after a piddly two hours of downtime at home.

John was kind of flattered (and vindicated, totally vindicated) that Dorian was so eager to spend their mutual day off together.

“Breakfast?” Dorian prompted when John emerged from the bathroom with minty fresh breath and damp stubble.

“Cookies,” John insisted, taking the seat closest to the steaming mug of coffee and enjoying the aroma.

Dorian passed John the box of chocolate chip cookies and then sat, too. Seemingly content to watch John get crumbs all over his tank top. Black. Slimming, yes, but a prime backdrop for showing off all kinds of things other than his figure. Wonderful.

Still. John refused to let himself feel like a slob. “What’s on the agenda today? You want to go out?”

“In the rain?”

“Doesn’t have to be the beach. Plenty of interesting places have roofs.”

“Like what?”

That was a challenge. “You want me to show you? Yeah, you want me to show you. Fine. Gimme twenty to finish waking up and that’s what I’ll do, Smirky.”

“How does that not count as a pet name?”

“Because it’s a statement on your current frame of mind.”

“You like my smirk.” Dorian smirked. Just to prove it.

John reached over and ran his thumb along Dorian’s lower lip. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Never said I didn’t like it, either.”

“You’re a complicated man, John.”

“And you like that about me.”

“I’m constantly amazed that you don’t contradict yourself on an hourly basis,” Dorian amicably corrected and John wanted to pretend that he hadn’t heard anything past “amazed” but he just couldn’t.

“Contradict--I don’t contradict myself. That was how you got me to eat a slug at Nuri’s,” John reminded him.

Dorian’s smirk deepened. “One of your finer moments.”

And the devil of it was John couldn’t tell if Dorian was joking or not. He chuckled, shaking his head, and then stuffed the last bite of his first cookie in his mouth.

As he chewed, he reached out and lazily flicked Dorian’s left ear. “Sassy,” John retorted and thereby declared the issue closed.


	11. Play Date

The city art museum opened at ten a.m. John bumped and badgered Dorian through the main entrance at eleven-thirty. The place was already packed with kids visiting on school field trips. Their teachers and adult monitors tried to look like they cared what their charges were up to, but they didn’t fool John.

He “donated” enough for two passes to the current exhibition. Works by the old masters of the Renaissance were on tour. The originals. Not celo reproductions or holo projections.

Boring, old canvases and frames. Dollops of faded color showing people in old-time costume and fields with out-dated windmills. This particular wing of the museum was understandably unpopular with the rugrats, so there was nothing but the glow of art-friendly spotlights, the creak of shoe leather, and the scent of dusty oil paint.

John took a deep breath and reveled in it. Landscapes and maidens and scenes from various moments in history and legend. John wandered ahead of Dorian, unwilling to absorb anything beyond his initial impression of each artwork while Dorian seemed determined to capture every nuance completely. But John didn’t have the energy for that. Never had. He preferred to appreciate at a comfortable and superficial distance. Until he came to a stop in front of The Triumph of Death.

He froze, jaw clenched, and his hands pricked with pins and needles. The scorched and ruined landscape. The agony and terror and overwhelming misery. But it wasn’t the piles of corpses and moaning plague victims that drew his gaze. John swallowed thickly at the sight of a frantic man being dragged into a fetid pool of death. And then, beyond his flailing legs, a single figure kneeling on a distant, barren hilltop. Praying. Death loomed at his back, sword raised and poised to fall.

John’s heart raced in time with a faint, grinding click. Walls closing in. **_**Don’t want to die--not like this--not--!**_**

“John.” A familiar touch on his shoulder. Just enough warmth and pressure to call him back to himself. John was not that man crouched and desperately begging for help, terrified to look over his shoulder lest the sight of the Grim Reaper be his last and only reality.

“John,” Dorian said again, mooring him with a second anchor. The hand glided down his back and settled against his waist.

“A hell of a thing to live through,” John managed to say.

Dorian nodded. “I think so.” And he wasn’t just talking about the Black Death. Neither of them were.

John clasped his fiancé’s hand in silent gratitude and, together, they moved on to the next piece.

When John’s stomach eventually rumbled, Dorian tugged him toward the museum cafe. But John flatly refused to pay ten bucks for a cup of reconstituted coffee, so Dorian drove them both to a place that had been highly recommended online. It was an absolute dive, but John could sit outside (under the shelter of a tacky awning) in the rain and pick apart his bacon scone in peace and coffee steam.

Dorian sighed. “You need vitamins, man. Vegetables. Fresh ones.”

A flat-out refusal would go over real well, so John prevaricated: “Not yet.”

“Well, brace yourself for dinner. Because it’s happening whether you like it or not.”

Dorian was definitely on a mission: their next stop was Mid City Floral. Roses, lilies, a multitude of fresh, damp flower smells puffed out onto the street as Dorian opened the door. John considered the merits of chickening out. Hanging back on the sidewalk and scanning for traffic violations. Dorian quirked a brow at him, clearly expecting John to attempt some sort of excuse.

So he girded his loins and marched into the shop.

Most of the flowers were printed. They had a mild fragrance and no need for water. John decided he liked those best and tried not to be too obvious about angling himself away from the fresh cut offerings until Goku finished up with a customer and skipped around the counter to greet them.

“Dorian! Detective Kennex! What brings you by?”

“Aromatherapy,” John muttered just as Dorian said, “We were just in the neighborhood.”

“Liar,” Goku gleefully accused. “I’m picking up trace particles of wood polish and some seriously gnarly oil paint compounds. You guys were just at the museum.”

There was no lying to a DRN. John was relieved to get away with his smartass comment. And even more relieved that either Goku hadn’t yet heard yesterday’s news or was ignoring it; the last thing John needed was a barrage of questions about his very up-close and involved tour of the Nag facilities. He was just not in the mood to dredge that up.

Dredge. Ugh. How fitting. In an effort to hide a grimace, John pretended to consider the tulip color chart lying open on the sales counter.

“What color do you want?” Dorian asked, peering over John’s shoulder. “I’ll get you a bouquet.”

What a shit. Dorian knew damn well that John had zero interest in flowers. More so now than ever before. “Get one for DT. He’ll get a kick out of it.”

But John made a mental note to retaliate at the first available occasion: lots of people tried to give others gifts that they themselves wanted. So Dorian was totally getting a bouquet in the near future. Just as soon as John could convince himself that the scent wasn’t a fluctuation in temperature and humidity away from turning sour and rancid. Choking.

John cleared his throat and tried to chitchat with Goku. Keep it light and friendly. Because, deep down, John was only getting more and more furious with himself at his inability to just forget the whole thing and move on.

Dorian selected the most obnoxiously pink and aromatic thing Goku could come up with. Of course he would. John insisted on driving with the windows down so Dorian ended up dropping off a slightly windblown creation at the Truelove residence. John waited in the car and spent the time looking up Samantha’s publicly posted schedule for the day. Seeing what she had slotted for 4 p.m., John grinned.

Dorian was right to be suspicious of John’s sudden, sharp-edged amusement when he settled into the passenger seat ten minutes later. John started driving.

“Are we going home?”

“Nope.”

An unexpected turn onto an unfamiliar street later, Dorian asked, “Where are we going, John?”

He drawled, “It’s a surprise.”

A surprise that Dorian figured out three blocks from their destination. “Seriously, John?”

“Of course I’m serious.” John tried to sound hurt. He really did. Genuine effort and all. “Do you really think I’d crash the party just for fun?”

“Yes. Because you enjoy being obnoxious.”

“Oh, c’mon. It’ll make Forney happy. When was the last time you did the guy a solid?”

Dorian growled but acquiesced. John squeaked through a yellow light and pulled into the adjacent parking lot, stopping the cruiser behind a cluster of news vans. Yup, Forney was in the spotlight today. Probably because Maldonado was still keeping a lid on the dumpster deaths. But as soon as the case was closed and sent on to the district attorney’s office, John’s near-compost experience would pop up in the public record. Or some vague description thereof.

But 494 had the spotlight at this precise moment because, finally, after weeks of waiting, the public was going to get to see Forney reunited with his friend Philip at a picturesque public playground. John couldn’t blame the boy’s mother for insisting Samantha Rubin be on hand to deal with the media. If it were his kid, hell yeah John would want to keep the cameras at a respectable distance.

But just in case Samantha ran out of material, well. Good thing John and Dorian had decided to stop by, right?

“Samantha is going to kill you,” Dorian predicted.

John checked, “If she tries, are you going to let her?”

A heavy sigh answered John’s query. “I suppose not. I can’t let you turn me into a widower before we’ve even tied the knot, man.”

“What a romantic,” John assessed, sliding an arm around Dorian’s waist. And John would say this about the recent attention: it gave him plenty of opportunities to rise to the occasion and meet the expectation for public displays of affection. That part was actually kind of fun. The questions and innuendo, not so much.

This time, perhaps out of fear for the backlash that the dedicated and diligent members of the 494 Movement would cause, the reporters kept their questions focused on Forney and Philip. Samantha helped with that; she’d waved John and Dorian over with a smile and very thoughtfully reminded viewers at home that John had been Forney’s arresting officer.

Oh, how to explain that in a way that both let John keep his job and avoid being burned in effigy?

But before he could resort to putting his foot in his mouth (just for the sake of distracting everyone), Philip dragged Forney over and, with his free hand, tugged on John’s sleeve.

“I remember you.”

An accusation if John had ever heard one. “I bet you do.”

“You took Forney away. For a long time.”

“You must have missed him a lot. I’m sorry.”

Philip scowled. “Forney says you’re gonna marry Dorian. He’s an android, too. The same kind as Forney,” he carefully explained. As if John hadn’t noticed.

“Forney’s right.”

“But you arrested Forney because he’s an android. I don’t get it.” The poor kid was absolutely befuddled. The trouble was it was befuddling. The whole stupid mess. It was ridiculous.

John solemnly agreed, “It makes no sense at all.” But there he drew the line. John was not going on record saying that the police had made a mistake in bringing Forney in, neither was he going to imply that he himself was crazy for agreeing to marry a DRN.

Forney coaxed Philip over to the park swing set and, when the reporters tried to get John to choose sides, he simply took Dorian’s hand and prompted the next question.

They stayed long enough for the play date to wrap up. Philip was asked a few simple questions, mostly they just wanted a soundbite of the kid saying how much he’d missed his friend and how much fun he’d had today and how much he was hoping to see him again real soon.

Forney knelt down on the ground for a full-contact hug, basking in and soaking up the kid’s affection. Camera drones whirred and lenses flickered. And then it was time to go; John and Dorian saw Samantha and Forney off while Philip’s mother herded her son toward the family car unmolested.

“So,” John said to Samantha in preparation for his and Dorian’s own getaway, “how close do you think you are to bringing deactivated androids back online? The decommissioned DRNs, yeah, but there’s a fair number of others that you’ve got in mind, right?”

Oh, right John was. She turned toward the cameras and started in on the next phase of the 494 Movement, John sidled out of the camera frame. He’d read all about it in the news. It was time to go.

This time, Dorian claimed the driver’s seat. John knew better than to ask if they were headed home, and he wasn’t the least bit shocked to find himself at Rudy’s lab. They still had two more DRNs to look in on, after all.

“He’s driving me bonkers, John,” Rudy lamented, looking harassed and rumpled.

“Who?”

“James. He insists on reorganizing all my hardware. I haven’t seen my phone’s adapter cable in two days! This is madness!”

“You look to be holding together pretty well, all things considered.”

“Well. Russell’s been keen to continue his studies. Massage therapy.”

John nodded slowly. “Uh huh…” That explained a lot. It also made John suspect that James and Russell were coordinating against Rudy. Perhaps to keep the guy from dwelling on--

“Val,” Rudy suddenly blurted. “Have you seen her? Is she all right?”

“Well, uh, she’s busy,” John stalled. He’d suspected that Val would have to put some distance between herself and a guy who repaired DRNs for a living and designed DRN chargers on the side. Here was the proof.

“She’s not returning my calls. I mean, I thought we…”

“Hey,” John interrupted, clapping Rudy’s shoulder a smidge too hard. “I can’t tell you what’s going on inside Valerie Stahl’s head. It’s not easy being a cop who’s also a Chrome. Especially now.” He glanced meaningfully in Dorian’s direction where he was giggling at something Russell had stuttered out. The flesh wounds from the assault were all healed up, but apparently there was hardware damage affecting his speech. John wearily wondered, **_**How many nanobots does it take to fix a voice box?**_**

God, but he wanted to give the assholes who’d screwed with his team’s chargers a taste of their own medicine. And soon. Or else John was going to spoiler everyone on his 2049 Halloween costume idea: an enraged cynic. He expected it’d be a big hit come October. If he could just keep it under wraps.

Rudy finished mulling over John’s words and slowly mused aloud, “Right. Chromes on one side and DRNs on the other.”

John gave a rueful nod. “You and I have both been pretty clear which side we’re on.”

“But Val, I mean, she’s got good people she can reach out to, yeah? If, you know, she were to need anything.”

“I’m sure,” John insisted because yes, Val had Sandra and Paul. John trusted Sandra implicitly and Paul, personal feelings aside, had never hung John out to dry. “It’s probably just a case,” he hinted. “They all end sooner or later.”

“Right. Right.” Rudy nodded and gave John a tight smile. Doctor Lom, the brave roboticist. “Thanks, John.”

“Good talk,” John agreed. “Wish we could do something about your lab guests.”

“Eh, they’re not so bad,” Rudy admitted, negating his previous complaint and cluing John in to just how much of all that aggravation had really been generated by worry over radio silence. It was cruel to leave Rudy out of the loop, but it guaranteed a better cover story for Val. Keeping her safe was the number one priority.

“Besides,” the tech continued, “I seem to remember her saying that work could get very… demanding.”

“It takes a lot out of you.” John rolled his jaw in a rueful shrug. “It’s a miracle, really, that any life partner puts up with it.” He exhaled, looking across the way at Dorian who was telling James and Russell about an old case that he’d worked, cracked, and closed with John this time last year.

Rudy smiled fondly. “The rewards are worth it.”

Yeah, John thought so, too.


	12. Making a Stink

“I hope you had a good day off, John,” Captain Maldonado greeted.

It had been good, all things considered. He and Dorian had spent a quiet evening watching the game live on the holo screen, which was the undisputed best way to watch a game because nobody could peek at the final score and John could sip whiskey in his pajamas. Bare feet for the win.

He sucked in a fortifying breath and nodded. “I’m ready to wrap up the Burdock case.”

His boss smiled. Yeah, John was tuned in and ready to go. Totally able to anticipate the next item on his To Do list. Leap tall buildings with a single bound. Well, he would if Rudy could actually fix his Super Leg. And if he couldn’t, then John hoped he remembered to remove Dorian’s memories from it before the whole lot ended up at Droidax for guys like DiCarlo to stumble across.

John held in the shudder.

Unaware of John’s internal tangent, the captain nodded. “The DA’s office will be happy to hear from you.”

“That’s me. The guy who makes everybody happy.”

Not even a stoic police captain could keep a straight face in the wake of that one. John chuckled right along with her. And then Paul joined in because nobody had invited him. If the guy’s goal in life was to be crass and annoying, then he had a **_**radar**_** for opportunities.

“You know what would make me happy?” Paul segueyed.

John grouched, “If it’s another trip to Mexico, that would make **_**me**_** happy.”

“Hey. You have any idea what Dorian is like when he’s losing it over whether or not your ass is still alive?”

“Again with my ass. Dude. Leave it alone.”

“Don’t,” Captain Maldonado interrupted, “make me waste time I don’t have writing you both up for harassment in the workplace.” With a look that was also a reprimand, she marched away.

“She was talking to you,” Paul snootily insisted.

John lobbed: “She was talking to you more.”

Paul sucked in a breath to get snide, but the captain happened to choose that moment to bark out: “OK, everyone! Gather ‘round and listen up!”

John forced himself not to fidget or stomp on Paul’s toes. The pressure built up to the extent where, as soon as the captain released them from roll call announcements and assignments, John practically fell onto the Burdock case file.

And if he’d thought the compactor was awful, then what Paul and Kowolski’s interrogations had turned up was worse.

The whole family had been in on it, working together to “clean up” the streets. It had all started back with Uncle Pete, who’d been “humanely dealt with” by Matthew’s father -- Pete’s own brother. And when he’d been trying to figure out how to safely and quietly get rid of the body, he’d come up with the idea to start a biodegradable waste composting company. And then he’d thrown in a free service to the citizens of the city -- the removal of the “dregs” of society -- just for shits and giggles.

They’d even developed a system: knock their target out with noxious gas (a byproduct of the composting process), water-board the incapacitated victim with cheap liquor, and then toss the body (whether still breathing or not) into one of their company’s bins to rot until pickup.

A report from forensics on the urine that had soaked the trousers and shorts of Monday’s victim confirmed that he’d woken up at some point in the process and pissed himself out of pure terror. There was no other reason -- no medical reason -- for that much urine to be there. John couldn’t help but imagine it: waking up pinned to the ground, helpless; a damp cloth stretched and secured over his face; a steady stream of liquor that he could either drink or drown in.

God.

John shook his head in horrified awe. How many years and how many people? John could do the math -- maybe not as well as an MX, but enough to grasp the scope of it. How had the Burdocks gotten away with it after the government had required the installation of sensors capable of detecting human remains in waste management processing machinery?

Well, it turned out that Mattie’s degree in engineering had come in real handy there.

John could only marvel at how long they could’ve kept it up if it hadn’t been for a spectacular comedy of errors:

In March, the body had been found because Mattie had come down with the flu, gifting the same virus to his son. Overnight, Barnley’s fever had spiked and he’d been incapable of picking up the dumpster that had contained the previous evening’s victim. After that, they’d decided to bring Barnley’s son onto the team to pinch hit.

Things had gone back to normal with no one the wiser… until Monday. Barnley had been driving the truck out by the tram track, but then, as luck would have it, the truck broke. Toppled the bin. Let the cat out of the bag. If they hadn’t issued a memo to drivers reminding them to check the contents of the bins prior to emptying, that would have looked damn suspicious. Still, were it not for their newest employee, who had missed his turn-off on Eleventh Street…

Well. There was no point in speculating how long the suspicious deaths would have flown under the radar.

At least John now knew for sure that yes, it had been Barnley driving past the alley on Tuesday where the body of Welima Jonas had been found. He’d intended to do the pickup, but another driver had beaten him to it.

Still, three bodies in three Nag dumpsters hadn’t given John enough to investigate. If not for Riley’s locator chip, it would have been back to business as usual for the Burdocks.

Jesus. That was one hell of a family enterprise.

The only other portion of the report John wanted closure on was why he’d been chucked into the compressor without anyone noticing his prosthetic leg. The answer was more or less dumb luck. No one had thought that a police detective would have one, so after they’d removed his gun and badge and so on, they’d assumed he was ready for processing. They hadn’t wanted to waste time putting him through a scanner.

Yeah, John would pass on the round of radiation. Thanks all the same.

With nothing to add, John signed off on it and wished the DA’s office luck. Not in winning the case. Oh, no, that there was a no-brainer. But in convincing the Burdocks to take a plea and save the taxpayers some money.

Maybe the extra cash could go toward some nice, environmentally friendly project. Plant a tree thanks to the convict who makes a deal with the DA.

John rubbed his hands over his face and decided he needed coffee. Something to get his mind out of the pothole it had tripped on and the gutter of human waste it had fallen into.

So he stomped off to the break room. Bad mouthed the coffee machine until he got a steaming mugful as a peace offering. It was too hot, so he was blowing off steam on the way back to his desk when he spied a small square of paper -- actual paper -- folded in half in front of his terminal.

He didn’t glance Val’s way as he picked it up. Flicked it open. Read: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

Oh, Val. What humor. He’d missed this. It was damn dull around here without her wit spicing things up.

But. There would be a recording of this. Her dropping a note onto his desk. Last John had checked, the bullpen had security cameras that worked just fine. So.

Eh well, John had told Dorian he’d be making a stink. No time like the present.

“Stahl. What the hell is this?”

She didn’t even look up from the celo she was scanning. “A note.”

He flapped it around, making some noise and gathering more witnesses. “And here I’d thought these things were before your time. Or just beneath your notice. Kinda like me and Dorian.”

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “You try hard enough, you’ll find a use for everything.” With a tap to her keyboard, she said, “There’s the address. I’ll let the Smythes know you’re on your way to retrieve their stolen property.”

“And why can’t you do it -- your MX’s legs broken?”

“I have a previous engagement.”

John watched her stand up and collect her jacket. Leather. Tailored. Way above John’s pay grade. “Yeah, you go on, then. Make some new friends. There’s a vacancy thanks to the ones you’ve dropped.”

“At least I knew when to cut my losses.”

“Oh. Dorian and I are dragging your name through the mud? Dirty by association?”

She glared at him over her shoulder. “You’re a laughing stock. It’s embarrassing.”

“I want what’s best for Dorian.”

“So do I.”

Ah. The best lies were always the ones built on truth.

John snorted. “Right. Let me guess: that’s not me. Is that it?”

Amazingly, Paul didn’t jump in with a dig right then. No, he just gawped from his terminal, keyboard forgotten beneath his poised fingers.

Val sighed and John could relate to her exhaustion. “You’re not just feeding his delusions; you’re leading people on. This can’t go anywhere. The whole thing turns my stomach. I’d expected better from you.”

It was a good thing this little fight was staged because, otherwise, John would’ve been irreparably offended.

John rotated his shoulders in a fuck-you shrug. “Sorry I’m **_**not**_** sorry. Have fun dealing with it.”

In the meantime, John would go and deal with the Port Authority. Apparently, some GPS-tagged and reported-stolen valuables were being loaded into a shipping container and if John didn’t squeak his ass down there on the double they’d end up as someone else’s novelty items. Overseas. What a shame that would be.

Grabbing his jacket, John stalked to the android assignment station. He punched in the required information and an MX separated itself from the herd.

“Detective Kennex, I am unit 1502. I’ve been assigned to you.”

Fantastic. Yeah, John was loving the sequel so far. Two thumbs up.

At least the drive was quiet and the on-duty port manager was cooperative. John got the container pulled from the shipping manifest and cracked open. Everything that had been taken from the Smythe home was right there, alongside a batch of other high-end goods that John suspected had been obtained by way of sticky fingers.

“MX, inventory the contents of this container. Cross reference with reports of theft, beginning with the most recent.”

Five minutes later, the MX forwarded the results to John’s work tablet, but he didn’t need to glance at the screen to know that something was still missing. Or, actually, **_**someone.**_** The Smythes’ deactivated DRN was nowhere to be found.


	13. A Convenient Partnership

“I’ve never purchased stolen goods in my life!”

John stared long and hard at the indignant woman huffing and puffing in the interrogation cube. Hers had been the signature on the customs forms and shipping container rental agreement, so she was in the hot seat. Denying everything.

Yeah, OK. Not exactly a plot twist. More like the opening act of the same old story. But the evidence would have her singing a different tune eventually.

What most concerned John wasn’t how she’d obtained the hoard of pricey items but what had happened to the DRN that hadn’t been found in the container. Once upon a time, John would have just come out with it. Growled and snapped and bullied and downright strong-armed the information out of the suspect. An insistently vicious part of him loved the sound perps made when they popped. Music to his ears.

But during his time with Dorian as his partner, John had seen it demonstrated, over and over, how a thoughtful and wily approach could pretty much do the heavy lifting for him. And not only would it be stupid not to take advantage of that, but it would crouch in the back of John’s mind, casting a shadow because the only thing that would stop it from disappointing Dorian was the fact that Dorian didn’t know about it.

And, you know, it really sucked when Dorian was disappointed with John. Like, epic levels of awful.

So, taking a page from Dorian’s book, he enlisted his patience for active duty and poked in metaphorical corners, stirring up cobwebs and dust… and waited for this soccer mom in her late thirties to choke on it.

She stubbornly insisted, “I found those at estate sales. I can give you the addresses.”

“Great. You do that.” He skidded a tablet across the table toward her. She didn’t pick it up.

John said, “You transport your finds in your personal vehicle, right?” He showily checked the DMV records and hummed. Clicked his tongue. “A van. I bet that’s useful.”

She crossed her arms. Leaned back. Tried to look cool. “Why wouldn’t I use my van?”

That was what John had been hoping she’d say. “Yeah, vans are great. Good for hauling. Good for shuttling kids around, too. So I’ll be talking to your daughter and her teammates next.”

“What!? Why would you--I’m not giving my consent for that!”

“Turns out I don’t need your consent,” John brightly explained. “See, there are a couple of items unaccounted for. They may have been in your van at one time. So was half the neighborhood soccer team. Maybe some stuff fell into somebody’s sports bag.”

Yeah, John was bluffing. Probably. His knee-jerk reaction was to scoff at the possibility of some kid making off with a DRN… except that was pretty much what Philip had done.

“That’s preposterous.”

“But not impossible.” And if John had learned anything over the last few years, ever since a beautiful stranger had rear-ended his car and John’s predictably stable life had started to unravel, then this was it: if it wasn’t impossible, then he couldn’t afford to turn a blind eye. “We go where the investigation leads.”

In proof of that, John stood up.

She insisted: “I don’t know what it is you’re looking for. There’s nothing in my car.”

“Yeah. Let’s see what the fuel consumption logs have to say. Every trip you made to your storage unit was recorded. It’s a simple matter to calculate back from that to find the weight of the cargo. And if I find even one kilogram that shouldn’t be there…” John trailed off.

She bit her lip. “Check the logs. There’s nothing else. What you found in the shipping container was everything.”

And now John did let his inner bully out. Just for a moment. He crowded in, braced himself on the table and rumbled, “If you’re wasting my time, I’ll make sure the DA asks for the maximum sentence. Fifteen years. On the plus side, you won’t have to deal with your daughter’s make-up, break-up, fun-time twenties.”

Rallying, she scooted forward to meet his challenge. “What you’ve got was all I had.”

John retreated. It was counter-intuitive, but it was a tried and true winning play. John would give her a little time to consider every mistake she might have made and how long it would take the police to find it. Then she’d have to come up with something she could offer in exchange for leniency.

Flicking on his timepiece’s stopwatch feature, John headed down to the garage where forensics teams pulled vehicles apart in search of physical evidence. Or just because it was fun. It would be a while before they got to the soccer mom’s van, but John had put his most recent MX on the case.

“You find any discrepancies in the data? Is it likely she transported anything else to the port?” According to the shipyard paperwork, she’d only had twenty-four hours to pack the container. So the first step was to confirm that the van had used the expected amount of fuel between her gutted storage unit and the port.

“No discrepancies detected,” it answered from the driver’s seat. Its finger was pressed into the dashboard data port. The light from the flickering navigation screen flashed across the MX’s statue-still silicone face.

Vaguely nauseated, John crossed his arms. “OK, try this: access every trip this vehicle has made since Tuesday. Calculate the weight of each load and give me a map showing all the routes.”

“The data you’ve requested will take a few minutes.”

“Come up to the bullpen when you’re done.”

Taking the lift back to his terminal, John couldn’t help but think of how much faster this part would’ve gone if Dorian had been here. John wouldn’t have had to break it down into baby steps -- Dorian would have known what John was looking for and taken the initiative to scan for it, allow for errors, and bring up relevant correlations instead of exact matches.

John sighed into his seat. This job used to be fun. Or, at least, less frustratingly exhausting.

But there was one thing John could do that was sure to liven things up. He checked his watch just to be sure the minimum time required had indeed passed, and then he filed a report.

A missing persons report.

For DRN-324, formerly of the Smythes residence.

He made sure to tag the data provided by the insurance company and CC’ed Dorian on the entire file. With a smirk, he hit the submit button.

Oh, yeah. That was going to be a big hit.

* * *

John figured it would be a while before the fireworks really got going. He had time to look over the MX’s uninspiring report on the van’s recent trips and wander back toward the interrogation room. Stepping just over the threshold, he propped a shoulder against the jamb and, ankles crossed oh-so-casual, asked, “I think we’re done here. An officer will escort you to booking. Unless there’s anything else you think I’d like to know?”

She gave up the names of the shady characters who’d sold her the goods. John passed them on to the theft task force. They had a database of suspected and former fences. Passed the soccer mom their way, too. Maybe they could use her for a sting operation in exchange for a lighter sentence. John, meanwhile, had a shift on the street lined up.

“Let’s go,” he told the MX and ignored it all the way to the cruiser.

But after they hit the road, the MX said, “Detective Kennex. What were you searching for specifically with regards to the suspect’s van?”

“Any indication that something else might have been inside it -- something that didn’t make it to the inside of the shipping container.”

The MX considered that for a moment. “That task would have been better suited to a DRN.”

John just about choked. “Well, then. Next time, I’ll ask one for assistance.”

The MX was scanning him. John could feel it. “My evaluation surprises you.”

John shrugged. “I thought you guys wanted to corner the market on assisting police officers.”

A swirl and swish of red processing lights on the thing’s cheek: it was probably looking up the idiom John had used. “The MX-43 line was designed to compare hard data and quantifiable physical evidence against police protocol and legal regulations. That makes us very useful to police officers.”

“It makes you a walking calculator,” John muttered, glaring past the steering wheel. Before the MX could open its mouth again, John reminded it, “Don’t like calculators much.”

But whether John liked it or not, it was clear that not only did MX’s have limitations, but they were aware of those limitations. He thought back to the MX that had insulted Dorian at the scene of Anton Cross’ murder. The thing had come across as arrogant and condescending as it had launched a verbal attack on an “inferior” android that was operating an “old, retired system” and who had been “appropriately canceled.”

And while an MX could insist on its own superiority, it could also explain its own shortcomings. MXs didn’t have an ego. They had logic. And that was probably what constantly rubbed John the wrong way. John was all ego. Hell, his main method of communication from team pow wows to interrogation relied on clashing egos. Logic was and always had been a distant second.

Plainly, John didn’t understand MXs. Didn’t want to understand. Didn’t want to be the one to bend in order to communicate with them.

Didn’t want to depend on them again… and then be let down, abandoned, and left for dead again.

Luckily, an incoming call from dispatch stopped John from wandering any further down that road.

“10-31: robbery in progress. Winson Boulevard and Ninth. Speedy T’s convenience store. 10-32--”

A suspect with a gun.

“Possible hostage situation. 10-40.”

Run silent -- no lights, no siren. Shit.

“Show us responding,” John ordered, already turning the cruiser in that direction. Ninth was on the beat that Dorian and Hernandez patrolled. Odds were they were already headed in that direction, and if Dorian was going to run into the path of a bullet, then John wanted to be there to back him up.

The cruiser pulled up a block shy of the convenience store. John could see right off the bat why the suspect hadn’t tried to make a run for it: across the street, in plain view, an armored truck was in the middle of making a pickup at an ATM. Combat model androids standing guard. Fully armed security officers in tactical gear were taking their time wrestling with an uncooperative machine.

Hernandez was interviewing an older man, probably the one who’d called 911. Beside her stood a distraught mother clutching a toddler to her bosom, tears in her eyes and her gaze trained on the glass doors of the store. From that angle, she couldn’t see in. But then, neither could the robber see out.

“What’s up?” John demanded, jogging over to Hernandez.

“Eye witness called it in. Walked by and saw the perp with a gun pointed at the cashier. Called 911 and then a boy went into the store. Five years old. Got away from his mother. Caller stopped the mother from going in, but then those bozos pulled up and now we have a situation.”

“Back door?”

“Delivery chute.”

Ah, shit. No way out. Entry only. It was a glorified drop box for delivery truck drivers. Boxes and cartons went in and were automatically shuffled into the shop’s storeroom for the attending employee to check in and stock later.

Hernandez gave the rest of the bad news: “Dorian’s on it.” She gestured toward the end of the block where alley access ran behind the uninterrupted wall of store fronts and shabby houses.

“And he could use a distraction.” John glanced around, his eyes landing on a blind man sitting on a stoop a few doors down. “Excuse me, sir,” John called, hurrying over. “I’m Detective John Kennex. Delta Division. I need to borrow your cane and glasses for a few minutes.”

“Twenty bucks.” The guy produced a bit stick and John didn’t have time to argue.

He dug his out and tapped it against the blind man’s.

“Twenty-five dollar deposit,” the man’s tech announced and John found himself the proud renter of a disguise.

Dialing up Dorian on his phone, John said, “I’m coming in the front. If you can’t get to the kid, then I’ll try and get the perp to come to you. You in position at the back?”

“Yes, I’m ready. Be careful, John.”

He turned his phone off, slipped the shades on, and headed for the store.

His MX stepped into his path.

“Don’t!” John snapped. MXs had no concept of volume. Its voice would carry like a Goddamn yodel in the Swiss Alps. “Don’t say a word. Stay here, contain the scene.”

Cane at the ready, John rhythmically swished it -- just a bit -- from side-to-side like he was checking for obstacles near his feet. And then he waltzed into the store.

“Hey, yo!” he called in the general direction of the cash register where what appeared to be a customer was lounging close to the bitcoin pay pad. Too close. “Who’s doin’ the daily grind today?”

The elderly woman behind the counter took a deep breath and said, “It’s Bella today, Al.”

“Aw, Bella. My soulmate.” John kept his face forward as he took measured steps toward the snack aisle. “You gonna sell me a winner today?”

“You know I always try.”

John chuckled and reached out to touch his fingertips along the shelves. The price displays had old-time Braille and he pretended to read them. He grabbed a bag of shrimp crackers that claimed to have a sweet, green pepper flavor because it looked interesting.

“And you know I’ll share the jackpot with you when I win.” John made his way toward the bottled soft drinks. Just opposite the refrigerated cases, crouching at the foot of the ice cream chest, the missing boy stared up at John as he passed, eyes wide and arms tight around his drawn-up knees. John said loudly, “Where we runnin’ away to together, Bella?”

“Hawaii sounds good.”

“Hawaii, huh?” John felt his way toward a bottle of sweet, ginger soda. “The luau clinch it for ya?”

As John started toward the counter, turning right angles and taking those same carefully measured steps with his face aimed straight ahead, she answered shakily, “Kilauea. I wanna see Kilauea. Before I die.”

Coming to a stop at the bitcoin transfer point, John startled, pretending he’d just noticed the guy slouching against the counter with his right hand (and gun) concealed behind a display of exotically flavored nicotine chews.

“Sorry! Don’t let me cut in front of you, there.”

“Naw, it’s cool. You go ahead. I’m waiting for my girl. She’s in the restroom.”

John nodded. “Thanks, man.” 

In the woman’s general direction, John beamed. “Hey, the volcano, huh? Bella, darling, it’s gonna happen. Don’t you worry,” John encouraged. “Now work your magic and gimme the usual? There’s a peach.”

John shrugged like he was digging in his pocket for a bit stick.

Bella shifted toward the furthest dispenser of Holo Lotto, taking herself out of the line of fire. She reached for a celo.

John reached for his gun.

In the blink of an eye, he had the end of the barrel pointed between the gunman’s eyes. “Police. Let go of the gun. Hands up where I can see them.”

The guy considered resisting, but hell. His odds were even worse than those damn Holo Lotto deals.

Apparently, he was smart enough to figure that out. He nodded and slowly withdrew his right arm from behind the display and lifted both empty hands for John to see.

“Hands on your head. Turn around.”

He reached up, pivoted to the left…

And then he ran, sprinting for the storage room door in the back.

John didn’t bother to yell a warning. Even if Dorian wasn’t using his infrared vision to keep track of everyone in the retail space, he could certainly hear those booming footsteps. Like a herd of elephants.

Motioning Bella to get down, he planted himself in front of the exit. Just as the would-be robber slammed through the backdoor, the little boy crawled around the far corner of the aisle. John motioned him over and the kid barreled out the shop door.

“Just sit tight, Bella,” John said quietly and closed in on the backdoor, hearing a scuffle taking place on the other side as he approached. He toed it open, laser sight sweeping the crate-cluttered and box-strewn space--

And quickly took his finger off the trigger at the arresting sight of his lover handcuffing the disgruntled gunman.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Dorian was saying and John was smiling because damn he’d missed this. Dorian and teamwork and, yes, damn it all, the crisp sound of handcuffs locking shut.

John held the door open as the perpetrator was insistently escorted out.

“Detective Kennex.”

John chuckled at his lover’s satisfied smirk. “Officer Dorian.”

“Nice shades.”

“Just got ‘em off a guy. Glad you like them.”

“Give them back to Mister Roberts before you break them. Those were a gift from his granddaughter.”

John’s face ached with the force of his smile. “Yes, sir.”

In general, John was not a fan of being told what to do, but in this one instance, he figured he could make an exception.


	14. The Disrupter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Sexytimes!!

“Kennex! My office. Now!”

Everyone in the bullpen tried to look busy. Except for Paul who was snickering at the celo he was making no effort to read. John squared his shoulders and answered the captain’s summons, marching past the unblinking stares of MXs on standby.

“Hey. Is this about the awesome job we just did -- Dorian and I -- foiling that convenience store robbery? Saved the day, rescued the people? No? Well, that’s because you haven’t seen the video. I’ll get you the video.”

Captain Maldonado continued glowering. “No, John,” she answered as if she had no interest in saluting John’s improvisational prowess. She nodded him into her domain. “This is about a missing persons report. What were you thinking?"

Her office door snicked shut like the final dot at the bottom of a very prominent question mark. Now that nobody was listening in, John crossed his arms testily (all for show because, yeah, glass walls) and quietly asked, “Is that really why you called me in here?”

“Of course not.” Her nonplussed expression was unmoved, but her tone turned conversational. “Valerie was just at the Ixas Club. Got a bite. Today at lunch.”

“Yeah?” The Ixas Club -- that was probably where the Smythes had encouraged her to vent her grievances on Thursday evening. And now a bite -- someone had taken the bait and reached out to her. Lunchtime today -- Val’s appointment that had kept her from running down the stolen goods lead herself. It was all coming together.

Getting it secondhand was kind of annoying, but there was nothing to be gained in being bitter about it. What a shame.

“A bite, huh? Anything good?” John idly asked.

Sandra nodded to the blank celo sitting at the corner of her desk. John picked it up and, as soon as he touched it, his fingerprints unlocked the print. He scanned it and then wiped it clean. “Thanks for the head’s up. I’ll let Dorian know. He owes me a night out.” 

Dorian owed him no such thing; John was perfectly content with a night in.

“Jesus, D,” John choked out as DRN lips clamped over the skin above his jugular and tugged. John had stepped out of the shower expecting the task of either making or eating dinner to be next. Instead, it appeared that he was the main course. Dorian hadn’t even let him get dressed. He’d urged-nudged-bullied John into reclining on the bed: “You’re going to come hard for me John.”

“Don’t I always?”

“Let me count the ways.”

 ** _ **Ways**_** was right. John’s used towel was now lying abandoned on the floor and his fiancé was hovering over his wanton sprawl, feasting on flushed and overheated skin. The fabric of his patrolman’s uniform chafed John’s palms. And God, the inside of his thighs.

“I’m gonna stain your uniform,” he warned, fighting a losing battle against the urge to thrust his hard -- so hard and so ready -- length against whatever part of Dorian he could reach. It made no sense for the sight and feel of Dorian still in his blues to get John so epically hot and bothered. But he decided it didn’t matter since Dorian seemed to get off on it, too.

“So the washing machine will see a little action tonight, too. Do your worst, John.”

Oh, God. What sweet, beautiful words. John groped down to Dorian’s ass and, palming two glorious handfuls, hitched himself up against the figure looming over him, tempting John with the promise of rough heat, pleasure, and release.

Dorian’s mouth brushed and nibbled up to John’s ear. “I want you to get off on me. Just like this.”

“Yeah?” John panted, bracing his feet against the bed for better leverage. His shoulders pressed into the smartbed mattress, his chin tucking down against his chest. “You wanna watch?”

“Uh hmm.” Dorian shifted, holding his weight off of John with both knees and a single palm. The other hand slinked down to John’s hip and under, supporting his lower back and John’s eyes rolled back in his head as Dorian coaxed his undulating form into the friction, traction, greedy action. “Give it to me, John. Show me how much I make you want it.”

Aw, shit. No way could John resist that. His exhaustion from a long day evaporated as lust and latent adrenaline took him over. A gasp sliced through a whimper at the shock of pocket pleats scraping against John’s nipples. “Want--want you. D--”

“That’s it, John. Just like that.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That voice. That low, sexy hum. John had known teaching Dorian to pillow talk would be a bad-bad-so-very-bad idea. “And then?” he rasped, needing to hear more of that voice and its filthy promises. “After I--what then?”

“Then,” Dorian growled and goose bumps flashed over John’s skin. He was so embarrassingly close. “Then I’m going to roll you over, tongue you open, fuck you wide--”

Another whimper that John was determined to deny with every fiber of his being.

“--and make love to you until you come again while I’m deep--” For the love of God, did Dorian have to draw the word out, lower his tone even more until it vibrated with pure lust? “--deep inside you. That’s what I’m going to do.”

John bit his lip and then squeaked sharply as Dorian’s clothed arousal rubbed against John. Precision thrusts against his listless writhing. A cool, smooth brow pressed against John’s and Dorian’s lips were right there, whispering.

“You want it, John? You want me to do that to you?”

God, yes. Every torturous, naughty thing. All of it.

“You’ve got to come for me first, John.” A heinously perfect thrust. Just enough friction. “Show me you want it.”

He grabbed a fistful of Dorian’s shirt, pulled himself even closer, and the hand lifting his lower back moved with him, faster. Lusty and lusting and fuck so good. Thighs wide and hand curling tight around his aching arousal and **_**take it take it take it--**_**

Mouth open against Dorian’s shoulder, teeth and tongue pressing into the fabric, he came on a breathless scream of humid air. Pumped each wave out and onto both of them, smearing as he shuddered and pleaded for Dorian to keep thrusting, keep holding on, keep pinning John’s hips above the soft plane of the mattress and make him feel it all.

John moaned, shaking as it ebbed. The burning need fizzled out and every inch of him went soft and sensitive. His grip loosened and Dorian eased him down, smiling with pride and wonder.

John tried to roll his eyes. He really did. But he had the sneaking suspicion that he was smiling. “Don’t be so proud of yourself.”

“Deal with it,” the DRN challenged, pecking soft kisses to John’s pleasure-blasted skin as he sat up. The front of his uniform was glistening and frothed. Disgusting, really, but John’s smile widened. He’d done that. Oh, yeah. That was all him.

He watched as Dorian’s nimble fingers began working through the buttons and, damn it all to hell, the quick glimpses and teasing slivers of dusky skin was keeping him from closing his eyes and falling asleep. God but he wanted to feel that skin.

As Dorian shrugged his shirt open, he said, “Now would be either a good time or a bad time to tell you that I’ve been ignoring calls from Nico Galasso for the past ten minutes.”

It took John a minute to process that because -- Jesus -- Dorian’s skin was unreal. “What? That little--oh, damn it.”

Dorian quirked a brow. “I take it there’s something you haven’t told me?”

“Yeah.” John ran a trembling hand over his face in an attempt to gather up his orgasm-scattered thoughts. “Didn’t think it’d be going down this fast.” With a huff, he dropped his arm and shared what he’d read on the celo in the captain’s office: “Val made a friend at the Chrome club. They met for lunch today. He asked her to recommend someone to help with recovering his porn stash or something. Password trouble.” John wiggled his brows, trying for a joke.

Dorian realized: “She gave him Nico’s name.”

“And we’re Nico’s contacts. If he needs something to get the job done.”

“Ah. Should I apologize for making him wait?”

“Hell, no. You’re not at his beck and call -- don’t say you’re sorry. Unless you want to.”

Dorian smirked and John mirrored it.

John teased: “Feels awesome, huh?” Because the only people Dorian had to answer to these days were his commanding officers: Hernandez and Maldonado. He could tell the rest of the world -- John included -- to take a hike.

John could only imagine the novelty of the sensation.

A light zipped across Dorian’s cheek. “Comms? Or shall I handle this myself.”

“Up to you.”

“Then we should put some clothes on.”

John didn’t decline the offer to be included, but he could grumble. As vehemently as his sated brain let him. He focused on all the sexy hot loving he was postponing and that helped him work up to a genuine scowl. Fully dressed and game face on, he slid into the stool beside Dorian’s post on his left. Tweaked the collar of his dress shirt in place -- he was wearing John’s clothes again -- and nodded for Dorian to put the menace on.

And oh boy. “Menace” was right. His smirk arrived five solid seconds before the rest of his face showed up on the screen.

“Well, hello. I’d ask what took so long, but maybe I don’t wanna know.”

Oh, but by the sparkle in his eyes, Nico Galasso did want to know. Was dying to know. Too bad John wasn’t going to tell him. “Hey, whatever it is you want, just spit it out already. I get cranky when idle chitchat keeps me from my dinner.”

“Dinner. Sure.” Nico didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t believe for one second that he’d called in the middle of a culinary venture. So John didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t give a damn what Nico believed.

The hacker-for-hire drawled, “Well, maybe you can work this into your plans. I got my first assignment from the client Detective Stahl sent my way.”

John didn’t say how surprised he was that Nico had agreed to participate in the sting. Because John wasn’t surprised. At all. The kind of people they were going after were exactly the kind of people Nico liked to see striped bare and humiliated.

“I need you to get Rudy Lom away from his lab for a bit. Tonight.”

“Oh, yeah. No problem,” John sneered. “Any specific time we should drive by and egg his windows?”

Nico snorted. “I’ll need him away from his terminal for a little longer than the time it takes to dash outside and shout insults: from eight-thirty to nine-thirty.”

“If you’re considering breaking into his lab,” Dorian said, using that gorgeous intuition of his to make assumptions that would melt the brain of an MX, “then you should know that it’s not going to work.”

“Don’t need to be on-site to hack in--”

“Then you will need to fool the system into believing you are Doctor Lom,” Dorian insisted.

Nico frowned. “Wait a second. I thought I was breaking into a city-funded robotics lab system.”

“You’ll be breaking into a system designed and maintained by a former hacker.”

John’s lips quirked. “What--you think we just drew the name ‘Aphid’ out of a hat?”

Nico blinked. “Rudy Lom is Aphid? **_**The**_** Aphid? Shit.”

“Don’t go spreading it around,” John singsonged, speaking of both the secret identity and the aforementioned shit.

“This changes things. My whole approach. I need--damn it…” Nico scrambled for something off-screen, looking entertainingly flustered.

John glanced over at Dorian and jeered, “Aw, lookit that -- little CrispinX has equipment issues.”

“John,” Dorian tried to scold, but he was looking way too amused to pull it off. “Play nice.”

John grimaced. “Nice is boring--”

“I’ll remember you said that,” Dorian promised and John’s pulse thumped in dreadful anticipation.

“OK,” Nico blurted, tuning back in to the conversation. “I think I have everything on hand that I absolutely need. So. Eight-thirty. Be far from the lab. Take Rudy Lom somewhere public.”

So that Nico could hack the nearest video feed and keep an eye on him. John rolled his shoulders. “We’ll see what we can do.”

He disconnected the call and kept right on moving, leaning into Dorian’s space and nuzzling just below his ear. “We have time for the rest of what’s left on the itinerary…”

Dorian nuzzled back, sliding the tip of his nose along the edge of John’s ear. “And how useful you’ll be once I’ve turned you into goo.”

“Goo. Goo? In your dreams, pal. I can go all night and then some.”

“After a well-balanced dinner, maybe.”

“I’ll well-balance you.”

“I believe,” Dorian countered with quiet arrogance, “I just beat you to it.” He nodded toward the bed and the dirty clothes littered around it. “You start dinner. I’ll get the laundry.”

“Ugh,” John opined. “This domestication business sucks.”

Dorian paused in the act of backing toward the mess. He cocked his head to the side and smiled. “Now **_**that**_** we might have time for.”

John thumped a fist against the tabletop. “Evil. You’re evil.”

“Stop smiling, John. I already know how much you like it.”

Yeah, maybe he did. John liked doughnuts and whiskey, too, so it was pretty evident that he indulged in more than one thing that was bad for his health… but, hey, at least he’d die happy.


	15. A Night at McQuaid’s

“John?” Rudy dropped his tablet with a clatter and practically fell out of his favorite computer chair. “What are you doing here? Is it Dorian? Is he--”

“Being a pain in the ass,” John bitched because this was how they’d decided to play it. Dorian would duck into the lab while Rudy was out of it. Just to make sure Nico didn’t deviate from the parameters of the job he’d been given. And, as despicable as that job already was, John didn’t trust Nico to not get greedy. So Dorian would be able to call John at any time to give him updates on Nico’s progress. John would just have to do all the work of maintaining an argument on his end. Because the easiest way to explain why he and Dorian weren’t joined at the hip was an ongoing spat. Totally normal couples stuff that even Rudy could relate to.

“C’mon. Let’s hit McQuaid’s.”

Rudy perked up. “Right! McQuaid’s. Been a while. I suppose I can…” With a few keystrokes, he started locking down the lab systems.

John didn’t tell him not to bother. Instead, he took the opportunity to nod a greeting at James and Russell.

“What did you do?” James demanded with narrowed eyes. Well, it was nice to know in advance who’d be taking Dorian’s side in future rifts.

“Nothing,” John retorted, “that is any of your damn business.”

Russell fidgeted. “B-b-but maybe we c-c-can--”

John lifted a hand for silence. “Rudy and I are going to drink beer and be assholes somewhere way more fun than here. Be thankful you’re going to miss it.” To Rudy, he checked, “Ready?”

“Am I! Where’s my fedora got to?”

And since Dorian could track John’s locator chip, John didn’t have to call or otherwise signal him that the coast was clear.

“Any word from Val?” John insensitively asked. They were seated at the bar because that was where the best view was. Especially in the evening. Soft, warm lights glowed under the shelves, lighting up the bottles of poison like jewels instead of murky tombstones.

Rudy shook his head and sipped his martini. Yes, John had finally let him order one. With double olives. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

“Well,” John awkwardly defended, “I ask because I care. I didn’t ask earlier because I’m trying not to be pushy.”

“Is that Dorian’s influence, then?”

“Damn it.” John pretended salt in the wound. “Could be.”

“You’re good for each other,” Rudy insisted with a bit more candor that John would have expected.

**_**I guess that means the alcohol is working.** _ **

“So, can I ask,” the roboticist pressed, “what’s brought you out of doors without Dorian?”

John shifted guiltily but didn’t tell him to fuck off.

“With the way you two carry on -- it’s just a row. Blow over by tomorrow, I reckon,” Rudy encouraged, patting John’s arm.

John decided now would be the time to make something up before Rudy decided to do something unforgivable, like hug John in public. Luckily, he had some material to draw from that he did actually want to talk about. With someone more objective than Dorian.

John shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “Eh, I wasn’t even the one who started it. Maldonado asked him if he’d ever felt coerced. I mean, into being in an intimate relationship.” Because of course they both knew Dorian was caught between a rock and hard place when it came to duty. Rudy knew the coding by heart and John had witnessed it in action during the hostage situation: **_**“I don’t have a choice.”**_**

John cleared his throat. “The captain was just looking out for him, you know? That’s her job. Dorian got all bent out of shape over it.” John sighed into his drink. “Some things just don’t translate, so they?”

“Even DRNs have their limits,” Rudy agreed, which did not make John feel better.

“Still. This is kind of important. I mean, an important distinction to understand. I can’t spend the rest of my life worrying that he’s letting people take advantage of him.”

At that, Rudy rallied. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I don’t think he will. I mean, he’s got a very clear sense of priorities. And the things he values -- he’d give his life for. Shouldn’t we all be so lucky to see things so clearly.”

John heard himself confess, “I still--what if someday he takes a bullet that’s headed for an MX out of some blind, knee-jerk reaction or…?”

“Ah.” Rudy nodded slowly. “Right, well, he’s not classified by the department as a combat model android. Might take some time for that association to be rewritten and fully integrated.”

“But he can? There’s hope?”

“There’s always hope,” Rudy insisted. “Though, perhaps not for the MXs. That sort of change in status would be just plain flatly rejected. The MXs were designed to assist police officers, not **_**be**_** police officers. World of difference.”

OK. Maybe that made John feel a little better. So what if Rudy had successfully redirected the conversation away from his own love life. John was fine with that. Hell, they’d even bonded over something that had been eating away at John. So it was all good. So what if John felt like a bit of a chump for being the only one to spill his guts.

But, hey, the night was young.

“To the difference,” John suggested, lifting his glass of blended scotch.

Rudy’s glass had half a sip of martini left, but he obligingly tipped the rim against John’s. “The difference,” he agreed and then finished his drink with a flourish.

As Rudy lifted a hand to signal the bartender for a refill, John’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He fumbled it out and frowned at the screen. It was Dorian.

John glanced at Rudy who waved for him to go on and answer it.

So he did, but angled himself toward the empty space on his left. “Yeah?”

“So charming. Is that any to greet your fiancé?”

“It is when I’m in the middle of an argument with him,” John growled. “And if you’re calling to pick up where we left off--”

“As much as I would love to pick up where we left off,” Dorian purred and John’s libido just about shoved his ass off of the bar stool and out the door. Back home. Back to bed and Dorian’s arms. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. “But I’m calling to give you a heads up.”

“How considerate,” John snarked, biting back an inappropriate pun that could not happen right now.

“We have to keep Rudy at McQuaid’s.”

“Uh huh. And just why is that?”

“Rudy’s system will sense a foreign presence, so Nico has to make it think that Rudy is the one accessing it. Which means hacking Rudy’s personal device… which is currently connected to the network via McQuaid’s secure uplink.” John stiffened as Dorian delivered the punchline: “Nico’s going to hack McQuaid’s.”

“How is that a good idea?” John challenged, genuinely concerned. McQuaid’s was a cop bar because its patrons could feel comfortable letting down their guard here.

“Well, it isn’t really,” Dorian admitted. “There’ll be an almost immediate alarm and lockdown, but Nico just needs to leapfrog from Rudy’s device to the lab system.”

John’s stiff shoulders didn’t loosen. “An alternative would be welcome.”

“I’m sorry. Once the alarm sounds, everyone’s going to be forced offline until the target of the attack is identified. This’ll give Nico the time he needs to get the job done.”

With a sigh, John ran a hand over his face. “If that’s the way it’s gonna be, then I guess you and I won’t be speaking for a while.”

“I’m safe. James and Russell are here, still off-grid.” A slight pause. “I’ve given Nico the green light.”

“Dorian…” John began like he was just getting his second wind for the next round.

A second martini arrived in front of Rudy. John wondered if he’d get the chance to enjoy any of it before--

The intimate lighting in the bar flickered, flashed red before resuming its soft glow, and the music cut out. A series of pulses sounded, drawing the patrons from conversation, inner monologue, and contemplation of chosen poison alike.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm,” a mellow and automated, male voice announced from the speakers. “A malicious cyber attack has been detected. Rest assured, your devices have been removed from the network to safeguard your personal information.”

John watched as everyone pulled out their phones to gawp at the processing light swirling on the screen as each device flailed ineffectually, searching for a stable network connection. There were plenty of scowls and bleary glares. John added his to the mix because, damn it, he’d been cut off in mid-call.

But Rudy was already on it. His phone didn’t look like anything John had ever seen. A little too large to be convenient, but it was propped up on the bar, projecting a holo keyboard onto the surface and Rudy’s fingers were moving fast.

“Whatcha got there?” John asked because this was definitely the worst time to demand answers and, therefore, John would start in with badgering.

“I’m the target,” Rudy muttered, equal parts incredulity and fury.

“Hey, McQuaid’s is good. Your data on there is safe.”

Rudy bared his teeth, still typing at a speed that made John dizzy when he tried to track the characters. “I’ve got no data on this device, John. None! The only reason anyone would be interested in hacking it is to get into my lab.”

“Your lab? Shit.” John signaled the nearest bartender. “Hey! My friend here’s been targeted. How long ‘til we get access back so he can do something about it?”

Rudy snarled at the tiny code scrolling across the device’s screen. “Damn it! Why am I still locked off-grid?” He lurched up, nearly pulling himself onto the bar, and pointed an accusing finger at the hapless barman. “Reset your system. Now!”

Wary of becoming Rudy’s next victim, John eyed Rudy’s most likely weapon (the decorative toothpick that had been included with the second martini) as he hesitantly mused, “I guess stepping outside, beyond the range of the system would--”

“Make this twice as difficult!”

John wasn’t entirely sure how that could be -- hell, maybe McQuaid’s system had used its own codes or passwords or something to isolate Rudy’s device. A layer of protection that would turn into a virtual brick wall if Rudy tried to take it on from the outside? Well, whatever the deal was, Rudy was on the case. John decided to keep an eye on Rudy’s drink. Just in case he needed something to fling in disgust.

Ten seconds turned into twenty and thirty and then--

“Hah!” Rudy crowed. “Gotcha!”

Wow. The last time John had seen a smile like that, it had been coming from Val and he’d made sure to keep his appendages close and well out of range. Both of them had a smile like a great white shark.

“Network access restored,” the bar’s system crooned. “Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen. Please consult your respective devices for details on the degree to which your information has been affected.”

As everyone hurriedly did just that, the owner of the bar came over and spoke to Rudy. “It appears your device received the brunt of the attack.” He removed what looked like an old-time adapter from his pocket. “If you’ll allow me to assess--”

“No, I won’t,” Rudy replied, putting his device on standby before placing it in his pocket. He reached for his drink and John gaped as he took a leisurely sip. “I can’t permit you to access potentially sensitive information that belongs, by rights, to Delta Division.” Another sip. “If your own assessment of your system turns up any anomalies, feel free to contact Captain Maldonado and explain your situation. In the meantime--” Rudy reached over and patted John’s shoulder. “--my friend and I will enjoy our drinks in peace.”

John gawped as Orlan McQuaid retreated with a scowl.

Once the soft, bluesy tunes started pouring out of the speakers again and murmured conversations resumed, John marveled: “Well, maybe you won’t be a regular patron after all.” And then, on the heels of that thought, John cursed. “And neither will I! Damn it, Rudy.” John slapped the bar in genuine agitation. “Why’d you have to include me in your fall from grace?”

Rudy sipped and then smacked his lips. “This has been your bar for how many years? If they refuse to forgive the cyber gaffe of an acquaintance, then is this really the sort of place worthy of your loyalty?”

“Depends on the gaffe,” John stubbornly insisted. “What did you do?”

Rudy shrugged and pried an olive off of the toothpick. “I hacked the hacker. Whoever it is. I also identified the vulnerability that he or she exploited in McQuaid’s system and patched it. The owner should be thanking me, really.”

John tried not to fidget because, shit, this sounded like Nico’s mission had been a fail. Big time fail. “So the lab’s all good?”

“The lab is perfect.”

Well, damn. Damn, damn, damn.

John opened his mouth, maybe to congratulate Rudy or maybe to tell him he’d just screwed up a sting operation that he hadn’t been read-in on--

His phone buzzed. It was Dorian calling back. Thank God. Maybe he had some answers.

“Hey, I didn’t hang up on you just now, OK?” John hurried to say. “Cyber attack here at McQuaid’s. Everyone got disconnected.”

“Don’t worry, John. Everything’s fine.”

“Fine? What do you mean fine?”

“I mean, Rudy leapfrogged over Nico. It’s pretty ingenious, actually.”

“You say that like I’m going to understand what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Imagine data as a bottle of whiskey--”

“OK, yeah, I’m with you so far.”

“And the file names are the labels. Rudy effectively switched the labels. Nico didn’t get to the good stuff. He ended up attacking bottles filled with knockoff brand.”

“Is that so?”

“Uh hmm. Nico and -- more importantly his employer -- won’t know the difference.”

“Yeah? OK. Then… we’re good.”

“Yes, John, we are. And Rudy’s not bad, either.”

John chuckled. “I’ll tell him you said that. He’s sitting right here.” Turning, John told Rudy, who was busy looking like he was minding his own business sipping at his martini, “Dorian says yes, he’ll have your baby.”

Rudy choked, sputtered, and coughed.

Dorian hollered in John’s ear.

John was too busy laughing at the chaos he’d caused to clock anything beyond his lover’s scolding tone and Rudy’s teary eyes. He pounded Rudy companionably on the back and said to Dorian, “Be home in a bit, D. You might want to take this opportunity to charge up.”

“I’ll charge you,” Dorian growled and promptly hung up.

John beamed. “So, Rudy. Wanna share the joke or what?” Clearly, John’s dumb luck had hit upon a gold mine of backstory.

Red faced and gasping calming breaths, Rudy sheepishly nodded.

And whaddaya know. It was turning out to be a fun night after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know anything about how cyber attacks work or can be countered. Aside from what I’ve picked up from shows like CSI: Cyber and Numb3rs. Which, to be honest, is like 99% Panic and 1% Information (for me). But it seems to me that renaming a file takes less time than copying or moving it. So that’s what I had in mind for the switcheroo that Rudy pulled off... but, like, hella more smooth and sophisticated.
> 
> "I told them you were having my baby" is from Episode: Strawman when Rudy is telling Dorian about the testimony Rudy gave at Dorian's fit-for-service review. God, the look on Dorian's face is indescribably hilarious.


	16. Circling the Wagons

“Show me what the hacker hit,” John demanded when he dropped Rudy off at his lab. The scientist complied.

James and Russell crowded in, eager to see what had happened. They hadn’t felt a thing, of course, being completely unplugged and all. So maybe this was like being present at an autopsy. Morbidly fascinating. But without the smell.

Rudy pointed to the screen. “See? I’ve a program -- written a donkey’s age ago -- that essentially reshuffles file names, replacing the authentic ones with a dummy version that I create simultaneously whenever I deal with irreplaceable data.”

A few swipes across the tablet through a maze of interlocking and cascading directories led to a final destination. “This,” Rudy said. “This is what the hacker wanted.” He frowned. “Bugger. It’s the data on the chargers and the DRNs.”

“Everything?”

“No, and that’s the weird part.” Rudy leaned forward, peering at the screen. “The results from the DRN diagnostics from last Sunday onward -- those weren’t touched. But everything else was scrubbed.”

“When you say scrubbed…?” John prompted.

Rudy backtracked and navigated through another convoluted arrangement of directories. “I mean the dummy files are empty. Thoroughly erased. There’s likely no way for me to retrieve the data. But these--” He opened a series of spreadsheets and scans. “These are the originals -- they’re fine.”

“Because you switched them out.”

“More or less.”

“So, how’d the hacker even know which files to target?”

Rudy stiffened. “File transfer log. There’s a record every time I copy a file onto the department database. A veritable shopping list for a hacker.”

John was already on the phone, dialing Sandra, but Rudy wasn’t done talking.

Jabbing a finger at the monitor, Rudy insisted, “And the only way a hacker would get access to that is from the inside. John--”

John held up a hand as the captain picked up. “Hey. Rudy just got hacked. He says we’ve got a mole.”

“I’m on it.”

She was on it. And by the tone of her voice, it was no longer a problem. Oh, damn. While John and Dorian had been assisting Nico with hacking Rudy’s lab, Captain Maldonado had been running her own sting operation at the precinct. And it sounded like somebody had just gotten caught with their hand in the digital cookie jar. In all likelihood, Sandra Maldonado was literally sitting **_**on**_** the dumb schmuck.

She said, “Tell Doctor Lom that we’ll let him know which files were destroyed so that he can replace them. When it’s appropriate.”

“OK. Copy that.” To Rudy, John said, “It’s under control. The captain will be in touch.”

And to Dorian, who John found sitting behind the wheel of the cruiser when he left the lab, he asked, “What’s significant about eight-thirty and nine-thirty p.m.?”

Navigating familiar streets, Dorian said, “At the end of every shift, recent files are sorted and classified in the archives.”

“But eight-thirty is long past--”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Dorian interrupted with a cute grin.

John simultaneously rolled his eyes and a hand through the air. “Please, continue.”

“The archival process is automated and takes a few hours for the program to finish running, but there are always some files that are labeled aberrant. Those have to be assessed manually by operators. Generally, between eight-thirty and nine-thirty, techs in the Cyber Archives Department go through each.”

“So if someone wanted to go in and access an archived file, it’d be hidden in the middle of all that normal--” John scrunched his nose and waggled his fingers. “--nitpicking.”

“It wouldn’t draw immediate attention,” Dorian both confirmed and, at the same time, neatly corrected John’s assumption. Because John had some sort of pathological condition that prevented him from using the right terminology when it came to tech.

Plenty of people probably wondered exactly what Dorian saw in him. John had thought, once upon a time, that Dorian might actually find John’s careless use of jargon charming. Now he was pretty sure Dorian just enjoyed showing him up. Not all that hard to do if he were being honest.

He almost asked if all DRNs were so easy to entertain, but a timely yawn kept him from saying something that might have had the unfortunate outcome of leaving John to his own devices for the rest of the night.

God forbid.

It must have been a slow Saturday because the media was back in droves. John sighed. He was tired, damn it. It had been a long day and his ass was dragging.

Dorian reached over and gave his thigh a firm squeeze. “Just smile. I’ll do all the talking.”

Dropping a hand on top of Dorian’s, John argued, “Naw, it’s my mess. I sent the Burdock case over to the DA today.” Which meant certain portions of the case had been made part of the public record. Not much but, apparently, enough for these vultures to catch an enticing whiff.

“This could be about the attempted convenience store robbery,” Dorian suggested.

As it turned out, it was about both. In response to rapid fire questions, Dorian agreed that it had been good (“Awesome, man”) to work with John again however briefly.

“We make a hell of a team,” Dorian proudly declared.

And when John was hit with demands for the inside scoop on what had gone down at Nag, John merely summarized what had been in the report: “An on-site interview. Suspects were uncooperative.”

“Officer Dorian! Where were you when you got the call about your fiancé and former partner having been in mortal peril?”

John snugged himself an inch closer to Dorian as the DRN answered with a tremble in his voice. “I’d just arrived at Delta Division at the end of shift. A colleague told me there’d been an incident and offered to drive me out to the scene.”

Although John could think of a dozen people he’d rather get bad news from, he didn’t doubt that Paul had made an effort to be tactful and concise. Still, John rubbed a hand along Dorian’s arm in sympathy.

A few more questions launched and landed before Dorian wished everyone a good night and reminded them to drive safely. John let Dorian nudge him up the walk and around toward the backdoor. And while he knew that the reporters wouldn’t dare set foot on private property without an invitation and camera drones couldn’t see past the privacy settings on the windows of the apartment unit, he still felt watched. Vulnerable. Hunted.

“I’m sorry, John.”

With a wry grunt, John curled his arms around Dorian’s frame and cuddled up just inside the threshold. Yeah, the rest of the world had kind of interrupted their evening, and now it was late and they both had work in the morning. “It’s OK,” John murmured, pressing kisses to his fiancé’s temple and cheek. “I know you still love me.”

“Yeah, man,” Dorian sighed out, cuddling back. “I do.”

And John couldn’t help but think: **_**for better or worse -- ‘til death do us part.**_**

* * *

Paul was intolerable. Even worse than usual seeing as how John was once again being forced to set foot in the man’s territory. Paul really was doing his damnedest to play up that whole “a man’s home is his castle” deal.

“Don’t you have some paid leave coming up soon?” John grouched as he waited for the coffee machine (hopefully it’d had enough chances to steam dead all of the cold germs from last December). All he wanted was for the thing to spit out his allotment of caffeine and he’d be a happy man. Well, as happy as he could be with Paul in the vicinity. “The rest of us could use a break.”

“Having a hard time keeping up, Kennex?” Paul leaned an elbow against the kitchen counter and grinned. Waggled his brows. “Good thing the captain benched you last night.”

“What the hell was so special about last night?” John pretended to care.

So Paul pretended to explain. “Sorted out that rodent problem.”

“If that’s true, then where is the furry little bastard?”

Because roll call had come and gone like clockwork. Business as usual. Sundays always started off slow, feet dragging with exhaustion from the hectic weekend. The most noteworthy thing that had happened so far had been the text message that had flashed across John’s phone screen. An address that he’d recognized and a time that suggested midday sustenance.

John’s stomach rumbled, but he ignored it because the captain had kept last night’s op under wraps and John was curious. These kinds of compartmentalized stings had that effect. And if John couldn’t have a free lunch, then he wanted details on who’d been caught in Maldonado’s mousetrap.

“Eh,” Paul shrugged John’s criticism off. “Captain’s playing the long game on this one.”

Translation: Paul didn’t know, either. That figured.

John huffed and blew the steam off his coffee. Considered and came to the reluctant conclusion that they couldn’t build a very strong case on the word of a proven hacker and a civil servant on the take. They needed to wait for money to change hands. And if they failed to track that, then they’d be forced to resort to waiting for whoever was really behind this to play their hand. A dicey move that could lead to collateral damage. John figured this was going to be the topic of their sudden and off-site lunchtime pow wow.

He was right.

What he hadn’t anticipated was Dorian and Hernandez being ushered across the threshold by the captain. He tried not to perk up too obviously, but Dorian beamed and Paul rolled his eyes, so OK yeah. Maybe John would have to work on masking his enthusiasm. Later. Because Captain Maldonado arrived on a cloud of Mexican spices that made John’s mouth water.

“Where are we with the Smythes’ DRN-324?” the captain demanded as John claimed first dibs on the tacos.

John shrugged, slightly miffed at having to put off that extra-scrumptious first bite. “I got through the standard missing persons procedure before I clocked out yesterday, but we’re not looking for a human.” So there were no bank accounts to flag or credit history to dig into and, with three other DRNs currently wandering around the city, witness sightings would be confusing at best.

Dorian said, “If 324 sends out a distress call, another DRN should be able to pick it up. On our emergency frequency.”

“And if the bot doesn’t need help?” Paul suggested. “Maybe he’s run away from home.”

“So you’ve been to the Smythe residence,” John not-joked around a half-chewed mouthful. And then got serious: “But he’s going to need a charger. I’ve notified all the former owners of DRNs in the city to contact us if 324 tries to approach them about using their chargers.”

“Unless the person who took him already has a charger,” Dorian speculated.

“Yeah. Point.”

The captain opined, “I think it would be prudent to assume that this abduction is connected to recent events. Has Nico been given any additional work by these people?”

“Nope,” Paul informed them. “According to Val, he was paid this morning with a bitcoin stick via anonymous courier. The delivery service drop box isn’t even covered on camera. We’ve got nada to track.”

Damn it.

Unclenching his jaw, John looked Dorian’s way and asked, “What about GPS? Or remote activation?”

Dorian’s brows inched upward. “I think it’d be best if we brought Doctor Lom in on this discussion.”

As the captain dialed the lab to see if Rudy was available for a consultation, John passed Sergeant Hernandez the taco box so she could pick out her second. “How’re you doing over there? You’ve been pretty quiet.”

A rueful chuckle escaped her crooked smile. She had a smear of hot sauce on her lip that John could identify with. Dorian might get on John’s case about being a messy eater but, damn it, eating was messy. That was what made it fun.

Mariandra mused, “Been a while since I’ve sat in someone’s classroom. Mostly, I’m just waiting for Dorian to explain it to me later.”

“He’ll have fun with that,” John confided with a wink at Dorian who was most definitely listening in. And probably despairing at their lack of napkin etiquette.

A sudden thought occurred to her. “Hey. Kennex, why can’t we use the method you came up with to find 494 back in January?”

“Yeah, I relied heavily on his service record -- people that might want to either help or harm him.”

Hernandez nodded, showing she was keeping up just fine.

John explained, “I looked into 324’s work with the department, but that’s a lot of suspects to check out.” And John didn’t trust an MX not to let possible leads slip through the cracks. What John wouldn’t give to have Dorian working this case with him. The DRN’s sense of intuition beat a straight-up search for alibi-absent suspects hands down.

Rudy was also in the middle of lunch. Another bowl of popcorn. In the interest of keeping the noise level manageable so that actual discussion could happen, the captain had picked up an assortment of soft tacos which meant that Rudy was the only one crunching.

“GPS. Yes, well. I’ve the equipment. It’ll just be timing, then.”

“Right,” John agreed and, interestingly, Paul argued, “We gotta hold off. Wait for these guys to make their move. If,” he stressed, “they really do have plans to use 324.”

Sandra asked, “Rudy, what are the limitations on tracking GPS?”

John dug into his next taco as the techno babble thickened. When Rudy paused for a breath, John checked, “So interception is a possibility?”

“What are you thinking?” the captain asked as Rudy confirmed, “Well, yes. That’s what I just said.”

Instead of rolling his eyes at Rudy (who wouldn’t see it over the open phone line), John suggested, “I was thinking we handle this your way, Captain.”

Paul blinked. “You mean--”

“Ethan Avery, the sequel.”

Rudy objected. “A hologram’s not going to work. We’ve no way of knowing which vehicles or locations will be involved. Traffic. Witnesses. From what I understand, in order to turn the people of the city against DRNs, the incident will be fairly… impossible to contain.”

“No holograms,” John agreed. “But we’ll need a volunteer.”

Dorian met John’s gaze. Both of them remembered Bob and neither of them were thrilled at the prospect of another casualty. But how else were they going to catch these assholes? Chromes had the money and intelligence to stay anonymous indefinitely. Hell, Val’s own father -- the Don Stahl of the tech industry -- was a prime example of how to work the system. There was only one way to catch a Chrome outside of a years’ long, deep undercover op. You had to get them to fall on the blade of their own arrogance.

Sandra’s eyes sparkled. “I like it. Set it up as quickly as possible. Rudy, keep us all, John especially, advised on the android’s location and movements.”

Hernandez frowned. “We’re using the missing DRN in a sting?” She glanced at Dorian. “Without his knowledge or permission. Ma’am, I realize he’s not a registered citizen, but…”

Dorian consoled her. “From the moment he comes online, we’ll be able to protect him. We have to find these people.”

“The sooner the better,” John muttered at the taco that was dripping guacamole down the side of his hand.

Paul huffed. “Watch. It’ll turn out that he’s just gone off the reservation.”

“Paul--” John growled.

“Hey.” Paul held up a hand. “The bot’s been out of it for how long? Either he’ll have no network access and no idea what’s going on or he **_**will**_** have network access and how is all this personhood business not going to end up confusing the hell out of him?”

“Detective Paul’s right,” Rudy popcorn-crunched, making John wonder just how big of a bowl he’d managed to fill. The man seemed to be demolishing it at an industrious pace. “But that’s why we need to get to DRN-324 as soon as possible.”

Hernandez was still confused. “How’s that going to help us track whoever’s monitoring him? We can’t be talking about letting him wander the streets confused. Or worse.”

Or worse, yeah. Because John was pretty sure the DRN -- when it showed up -- was gonna be operating on someone else’s agenda.

This would be where the volunteer came in. Rather than detail that part, Captain Maldonado said to Hernandez, “Doctor Lom is an extremely capable tracker. We’ll get a location to John, who will intercept the DRN. During which time, you, Dorian, and I will go in. Make the arrest. Once that’s locked in, John, you’ll have the green light to get the android off the streets.”

Paul might think that they were all on the wrong track and blowing this way out of proportion, but he capitulated on a shrug. “OK. What’s our time frame?”

“D?” John asked. “Assuming the goal is maximum disruption, any guesses?”

“Morning rush hour. Schools and businesses have the same starting time, more or less. Public transportation would be more likely than a single building. A wider range of families would be affected.”

Right. Because the daily commute was the great equalizer. Mixing together people from all walks of life. Well, almost all, but it wasn’t as if the Chromes would have to sell their own peers on the benefits of deactivating DRNs. It was everyone else that they had to convince.

“OK. So now we pick a day.”

Paul snarked, “And just how are we gonna do that?”

“Hey. There’s a DRN missing. Report’s been filed. We let the media know about it, then everyone will be on the lookout for him. Can you think of a better opportunity for these perps to get their five minutes of fame?”

He couldn’t. Nobody could.

Captain Maldonado nodded. “OK. Then it’s time we ask the 494 community to give us a hand on this.”

John nodded. “I’ll get the word out asap.”

Dorian objected softly, “John…”

“What? What are we missing?”

“Nothing.”

“Right. OK. So, last chance for a bathroom break and a coffee refill.” John held up a hand to forestall Dorian’s oncoming objection. “I’m still under my limit.”

Paul snorted. “Jesus. Could you two be any more an actual couple. It’s nauseating.”

“A sense of romance -- that’s what you bring to the team effort, eh?” John heckled.

Hernandez snorted, but didn’t join in with how an age-old mystery had just been solved. Or maybe that Gorson had won the betting pool on Paul’s usefulness.

It was Dorian who said, “We’d be lost without you, Detective Paul.”

And maybe, just maybe, John felt himself fall in love with that snarky DRN all over again.


	17. Varsity Days

Sunday afternoons were always a drag. The explosion of spatter from Saturday night’s crazy stuck around like dribs of tree sap. Or drying honey. Or tacky bloodstains. So, yeah. Any progress made on Sundays was almost always glacial. A cleanup effort that took forever and a half. Even if everyone put their backs into it and got alibis checked and motives evaluated and suspects brought in for questioning.

John wound up assisting Gorson on an arrest that nearly turned ugly when the perp’s significant other came home with a bag of groceries and an unregistered handgun. Gorson’s MX took the bullet and John painted the woman’s forehead with his laser sight. Element of surprise gone, she surrendered.

The groceries were left on the living room floor. As John passed by, he glimpsed ice cream in the bag. What a shame.

But it was Gorson’s case and John happily dusted his hands of the whole thing once his report was filed. Still, his shoulders ached with tension until quitting time and Dorian’s hand rubbed at the base of his neck.

“Long day?”

“The longest,” John sighed out and dug up a smile because this. Just this was enough to slough off some of the callousness and slather on balm to soothe his weary soul. “You wanna go out to a movie tonight?”

“The Odeon’s playing a wide selection,” Dorian instantaneously checked and shared, “but I’d rather stay in.”

“Yeah.” John was bone-achingly tired. He’d posted to the 494 hashtag just after lunch, telling the whole damn world about DRN-324 and asking for sightings to be reported to Delta Division. Within five minutes, the tip line had let loose with a deluge of messages. A lone DRN had been sighted at Lyons Mall, and another on Fifth Avenue, and then in a Goddamn janitorial closet of Saint John’s Chapel. Jesus.

John had been coordinating with the drone operators, running the down one by one, for the past five hours. Most he could dismiss thanks to public camera footage. Others he’d had to relay to dispatch for the nearest unit available to check out. So far: zip.

But it wasn’t as if he’d really expected any different.

And to top it all off, he knew that the instant he left the precinct, news reporters would be in his face. As the detective who’d started the ball rolling, he’d get the lion’s share of the spotlight tonight. Once upon a time, he’d reveled in it. The attention. The glory. The pure affirmation that he was special. Important. Impressive.

But John was too old to fool himself for long. He was just another overworked cop.

A subtle movement at the edge of his vision caught his eye. Three dozen new sightings had just been reported. In the last two damn minutes. All over the damn city. And odds were none of them would pan out.

Because the announcement hadn’t just gone out to concerned citizens; the people behind 324’s disappearance had heard it, too, and this was the perfect opportunity to stir the pot and add to the confusion.

Which was why he’d get better results tracing these tips back to their original callers -- undoubtedly, a couple of these yahoos were the actual perps he was looking for. But he still didn’t have any solid evidence to arrest them on. Prosecuting cases of providing false information to the police wouldn’t shut these assholes down for good.

Damn it.

“I’ll help you run these tips down in the morning. We’ll come in early,” Dorian assured him.

John gave in with a weary nod. “Yeah. Let’s do that. Thanks.”

He didn’t say goodnight to Val. Dorian glanced her way and then resolutely faced forward, heading for the exit. He ushered John outside--

Where the overeager media pounced, shouting questions:

“Detective Kennex! Is it true you were reprimanded for filing a missing persons report on a DRN?”

“Officer Dorian! Was it your idea to treat DRN-324 as a missing person instead of stolen property?”

“Detective Kennex! Regarding the missing persons report, are you simply complying with the state court ruling?”

“Detective Kennex! How does this investigation differ from when a human is reported missing?”

John held up a hand and tried to push through the sudden flare of a humongous headache that he could tell already would be hating on him hard. The beady lights of the drone cameras drilled into his skull. Ugh. So not helping.

“No,” he tried not to bark, “I was not reprimanded for doing my job. DRNs are people. The state court doesn’t have to tell me that -- it’s obvious to anyone who bothers to have a conversation with them. And each missing persons case is different.”

John felt Dorian’s hand on his lower back and decided yeah, sure, Dorian could handle the next round. John was done for the night.

“Detective Kennex! Will you be using the same investigative methods that led you to Forney-494 back in January?”

“Detective Kennex! You posted a message to the Net using the 494 hashtag. Do you consider yourself a participant in the Android Rights Movement?”

Dorian said very clearly and somberly, “Neither Detective Kennex nor myself can discuss ongoing investigations. We’re officers of the law first and foremost, not activists.”

“Officer Dorian!” a scruffy-looking buffoon belted out. “What’s your response to recent speculation that you trade sexual favors for fair treatment in the workplace?”

John froze. Rock solid. And then the blood in his veins turned into pure, steaming magma because no. Oh no. No, that piece of garbage did **_**not just say that.**_**

But he had.

John’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. His vision misted with hot fury and his hands curled into fists, waiting for any indication -- any sign at all -- that Dorian was about to tag him back in because even though the question had been aimed at Dorian, the cameras were focused on John. His reaction. Which, by his reckoning, made this half his fight.

Dorian was just as incensed, but he found his words before John could slug the sleaze bucket right between the eyes.

“My response.” Dorian paused for a deliberate breath. “The very idea disrespects me and the people I interact with on a daily basis. To the point of defamation of character.”

**_**Oh, hell yeah!** _ **

John couldn’t bite down on the smirk in time so he knew the cameras totally caught it but damn. Just lookit who knew the law backwards and forwards and was not afraid to use it. And what made John borderline giddy was the fact that Dorian wasn’t just standing up for his friends and colleagues in public -- he was including himself in that group, too.

Well, it looked like Dorian’s programming was finally letting him fight for his own sake. What a beautiful sight to see. At long last.

“Officer Dorian! What unanticipated benefits have you encountered in your daily life now that you’re just like a person?”

“Like a person!” John coughed out, thoroughly offended all over again. Yeah, maybe John had used those exact words when he’d given testimony at the grand jury but, damn it, DRNs hadn’t been legally recognized as people then. How could he, as a law enforcement officer, say any differently on the record? It had been Samantha Rubin’s job to prove how nonsensical it was to continue treating DRNs like machines.

But. John didn’t make that argument. He’d already handed Dorian this round, whether he’d said so aloud or not. So he shut up.

“I am a person,” Dorian reminded the reporter very deliberately. “And to any skeptics who would argue, I would ask that they find the courage to accept the truth that, at its core, the concept of humanity is disappointingly bleak if it lacks empathy. DRNs were made to feel and designed to learn -- both very human processes. That’s never changed.”

What had changed was public perception of DRNs. John could feel a little proud of himself for being ahead of the curve, couldn’t he?

John decided this was his cue. He concluded brusquely, “And that’s all the time we have for answering questions today. Excuse us.”

The palm on John’s waist stayed in snug contact all the way down the steps. A very hot palm. Heat that John was feeling through his dad’s thermal-lined jacket and a light sweater and an undershirt. Damn.

John reached the driver’s side door first, so he slid in behind the wheel, reaching over to open the passenger door from the inside so that Dorian could get away from the rabble that much sooner.

“Good speech,” John approved as he cautiously pulled out. Tried not to hit anyone on purpose. But hey, accidents could still happen.

Dorian huffed and John would have sworn that the air temperature in the car spiked a solid ten degrees. “They still don’t get it. The law says that DRNs are people and then reporters use careless language like that.” Dorian shook his head. “This is how discrimination gains a foothold in society.”

“Sure doesn’t help.” Even if John and Dorian hadn’t been partners, friends, roommates, and engaged to be married, John would have agreed.

Dorian slammed his fists against his knees. “I just don’t know what to say to make them see!”

John opened his mouth. Glanced over. Noted how genuinely worked up Dorian was over this. And then he quoted, “One dark day in the middle of the night, two dead men got up to fight.”

Dorian blinked at him, brows beetled.

“Back to back, they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other.” John braked to a stop at a red light. “A deaf policeman heard the noise and came to find the two dead boys. Every word I’ve said is true.” With a rueful grin, John concluded, “Just ask the blind man. He saw it, too.”

A moment of silence.

The light turned green. John accelerated.

“That was nonsense,” Dorian grumped and John had to smile because hell yeah androids could be stubborn, too.

“Yup. But I learned it when I was in elementary school. And here I am, all these years later. I still remember it.”

“Congratulations.” 

John doggedly continued, “My point being: maybe the human brain is designed to get stuck on contradictions. Isn’t that what makes our jobs easier? When we ask if anyone saw anything out of the ordinary?”

Dorian reluctantly considered that. For less than half a second. “So you’re saying it’s a losing battle.”

“No. I’m saying -- if this is the battle you pick to fight, brace yourself for the long haul.”

Dorian stared at him for a moment. A long moment even by human standards. And then, aw yeah. There went the smirk that John loved to pretend he hated.

“You’re mixing metaphors again,” his fiancé teased, looking as charmed as all get-out.

John preened. “You love it. Admit it.”

“Admit that I enjoy listening to all the ways you butcher the English language?”

“Butcher,” John mused. “That sounds kinda caveman.”

“So you’re taking it as a compliment.”

Of course John was. He reached over and palmed the back of Dorian’s neck even as the DRN shook his head in disbelief.

Two blocks later, John suddenly rasped out, “I’m proud of you.”

That got Dorian’s attention.

“For standing up for yourself,” John elaborated without being asked.

Dorian’s smile was alarmingly wobbly. “If anybody asks, I’m blaming you for corrupting me.”

“You’re in luck,” John teased, delighted and charmed. “They’ll believe that.”

A second battalion of reporters was waiting for them outside the apartment. Dorian smiled his way through the throng.

“Officer Dorian! Detective Kennex! Any plans for this evening?”

“Yes, actually,” Dorian happily replied. “Dinner and a little wedding planning.”

“Is that so?” John gamely retorted. The latter was news to him.

Dorian confirmed, “Yes, it is. You gotta eat, man.”

John snorted, amused at how once again and as always, Dorian played the contrary card with impunity.

So, dinner happened, John’s elbow bumping Dorian’s as they worked side by side at the counter. Dorian did most of the slicing and dicing. John got to play caveman and command the marvel that is fire. Dorian told John about his day -- Mister Roberts was rather chuffed at having played a role in all the drama at the neighborhood convenience store. Not that John had gotten any of his money back when he’d returned the man’s glasses and cane.

“He’s saving up to get his youngest grandson a year-long commuter pass for his new job,” Dorian chided John when he grumbled about the loss of twenty-five bucks. “Besides, we got to take down a bad guy together. Don’t you think it was worth it?”

“Course it was,” John said with his mouth full and Dorian pressed a napkin over John’s face in retaliation.

“Watch it,” he threatened once he’d swallowed his bite of Thai stir fry and snagged the napkin from Dorian’s grasp. “Or I’ll have myself a couple of those fingers for dinner, too.” He snapped his teeth in demonstration.

“And then you’d have a lot of explaining to do to Rudy, and what a night to remember that would be.”

It turned out that it was a memorable night if for no other reason than the outlandish request Dorian made as he washed and John dried the dishes: “Show me your trophies, John.”

“Troph--my trophies. What--the room’s not enough for you? Yeah, it figures. Never satisfied, that’s what you are.”

“Lucky you.”

Still laughing, John nodded for Dorian to follow him up the stairs to the second floor where he just about tripped over the most recently shifted boxes: the ones containing the Christmas tree and all that nonsense. He twisted and squeezed his way further back until he found the ones labeled in Sandra’s neat writing and popped open the top on the first one.

Trophies. Yearbooks. His old varsity jacket, which Dorian was fascinated with and refused to let go of until John gestured for him to turn around and then helped him put it on. Because yeah, John had some manners still in him somewhere. Deep down. And plenty of male pride. The sight of Dorian claiming his right as John’s steady -- now that was damn hot. Kinda made him want to beat on his chest.

“Caveman,” Dorian accused in response to John’s proprietary smile and the sparkle in his eyes.

John didn’t deny it. “Just for you, D.”

Opening the school paper articles and photos dedicated to John’s team in his senior year, Dorian mused, “Are we inviting all of your former teammates to the wedding?”

Ah, so this would be the wedding planning part of the evening.

“We are inviting exactly none of those idiots to our wedding.” John flicked the cover over, closing the holo volume and sandwiching Dorian’s hand between the screens.

Dorian needled, “I think I should meet your friends, John. The ones you see outside of work.”

Oh, damn. This was going to be embarrassing. “Don’t have all that many.”

“There was Trevor Cooper. Surely he wasn’t the only one you considered a friend. From the academy or before?”

“Well, at the academy, there were actually three of us…” He named the Android Officers’ Review chairman and if DRNs had been capable of producing copious amounts of spit, Dorian would have choked.

“My service review. Did you--?”

John slid an arm over Dorian’s shoulder, on top of his old varsity jacket, and leaned in close to confide, “He let me speak off the record.”

“They were going to decommission me.”

“Hey. Hey, we don’t know that.” Looking into Dorian’s worried gaze, John mused, “Maybe because you did such an amazing job getting me squared away, they were planning to keep you around. Pair you up with another traumatized grouch.”

“You really think so?”

“Yeah,” John said. “I do. Sandra and I wouldn’t have let you go without a fight.”

A slow curve of lips and then a perfect DRN nose was sliding along John’s. He smiled into the Eskimo kiss and nuzzled in closer until two smiles melted together in a slow meeting of mouths. John’s fingers scratched through Dorian’s short hair as he tilted in for a deeper taste… until they were just shy of making out right there on the dusty floor, surrounded by a forest of victory memorabilia at the top of the stairs. In through the apartment unit’s high windows came the light of the moon. Silvery and nearly full among a herd of small, puffy clouds.

Streaks of light twinkled and zoomed across Dorian’s cheek and, pressing a kiss there, John murmured, “What’s this for?”

Dorian’s fingers tightened in his hair, bringing their brows together. “I don’t know how many years I have left, but I want to spend them with you.”

John’s throat twisted and clenched into a knot. “I want that, too,” he rasped, and dived in for a thorough kiss. Hot breaths and tongues gliding in a heat-generating slide. But neither one of them fumbled for buttons or zippers or hems. Just the caress of lips and the connection of mouths. Supporting hands along cheek or skull.

A teasing murmur: “You know, you looked kind of cute in your football uniform.”

A charming retort: “Hey, I’m cute in all seasons.”

Delighted heckling and laughter in the moonlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding how careless language can lead to discrimination: I see (and hear) this all the time where I live. My city of residence has become something of a sightseeing spot in recent years, so the number of visitors has spiked. On the one hand, this is good for the local economy and brings more opportunity for cultural exchange to this historically isolated area, however, it also brings heavy traffic and other inconveniences that residents have to deal with. I often hear locals grumbling about what a pain “foreigners” are. But hey, there are plenty of foreigners who are taxpaying, law-abiding, peaceful and contributing permanent residents (just like me). What people really mean to complain about (but are too lazy to specify) are VISITORS or TOURISTS, many of whom are NOT from foreign countries. As a student of a language completely different from my native tongue, I can SEE how the language that people use affects the user’s way of thinking in a cyclical cause-and-effect relationship. I don’t think this distinction is appreciated enough in mass media, which could be far more conscientious of how it uses words. Perhaps if more countries encouraged their citizens to develop a global perspective (where their own country and/or culture isn’t placed on a pedestal), some headway could be made in minimizing discrimination. (By the way, here’s a movie that I think really does a beautiful job of showing how insidious discrimination is: Zootopia. Watch it. It is glorious.)


	18. O.G.I.M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you’ve never come across this chapter title before, O.G.I.M. stands for “Oh, God. It's Monday.” (As opposed to the more popular T.G.I.F. -- “Thank God it's Friday.”)

John’s day started with soft kisses along his brow and warm fingertips tickling his jaw. A caress that swiftly jogged his memory: he needed to shave. Especially since he was going to end up on TV today. Again.

Damn it.

But if it meant taking home a victory, then it’d be worth it. It’d be worth it all ten times over.

Sucking in a long, slow breath, John forced open sleep-crusted eyes and curled slumber-stiffened fingers around Dorian’s wrist. The sky was completely overcast, creating a haunting glow from the just risen sun. It was like the whole universe was holding its breath.

“We’ve got this,” John dared to declare, voice rough and scratchy.

Dorian smiled. Slow and sure, charmed and sad. Because yeah, he’d clocked the double meaning. He knew John wasn’t just talking about the daunting tasks ahead and the precarious timing of everything and how horribly wrong it could all go if even one thing shifted cockeyed. Yeah, a lot could go wrong, but their team was more than capable. John was confident that they could pull this off, that was true. But he was also stating a fact: John and Dorian had this: each other. They’d come this far and hell yeah **_**this**_** was what he’d be fighting for.

“I love you, John.”

John pushed himself up from the mattress and engulfed Dorian in his arms. “Love you, D.” And very factually added, “More than anything.”

It was somehow easier to be so bare and truthful this morning while John’s mind was healed from surprisingly peaceful rest and his body untaxed by the demands of a day’s work. It was easier to give so much in this quiet moment maybe because there was quite simply more of John to give.

But if he brought it up, Dorian would tease him for being old and decrepit.

“Coffee’s ready.”

“Yeah. I smell it. Thanks.”

A quick shower, a thorough shave, and a thermos of coffee. The drive to work was silent until Dorian decided to share what was trending in 494 news.

“Samantha Rubin has a rally scheduled for this Saturday.”

“That’s nice. We’re not going.”

Dorian chastised: “Someone who believes in equal rights for DRNs would at least consider it.”

John sassed back, “Is **_**Rudy**_** considering it?”

“Rudy has already shared the post via his own platform.”

“Well. He’s having himself an early start to the day.”

“Or a yesterday that’s still ongoing.” Before John could worry about whether or not Rudy would be at the top of his game today, Dorian abruptly informed him, “Forney and Goku have been compiling a map of sightings posted on social network sites.”

“Could be useful,” John allowed. “Either of them sound like they miss police work?”

“Not particularly. And yes, they’ve already RSVP’d for this Saturday’s--” Dorian halted. Streaks of light swirled from cheekbone to jaw.

John glanced over. “What?”

“A sighting just now. A fisherman in the bay spotted a DRN running in the adjacent park. It’s probably another false alarm.”

“Kinda out in the middle of nowhere.” Which made it nothing like the others. Those sightings had been concentrated in downtown or in neighborhoods with clusters of shops. “Any public cameras nearby?”

“Two. Parking lot.”

“Can you get a visual?”

“Hm,” Dorian said, clearly focusing on whatever data he was accessing from the immediate area. “It’s not the best.”

“Forensics imaging?” John suggested like he was supposed to. Standard procedure and all.

“Backlogged. There’s a forty-minute wait, minimum.”

“Ridiculous,” John muttered, glowering at the morning traffic, which was also ridiculous. Just because dark clouds were threatening to dump a little rain on the city, everyone and their dog needed to drive today. That figured.

Dorian said, “Let me forward the footage to Rudy. I think he can clean it up.”

But John knew they didn’t need the image enhanced. They had an unaccounted for DRN on their hands and what they **_**needed**_** was for Rudy to get his ass out there, make the ID, and set everything up for Stage Two. Luckily, it would only take him about two minutes to get a clear image and his butt behind the wheel of the tech truck.

“Good ol’ Rudy,” John approved. “He’ll sort it out before we make it in.”

And at the rate inbound traffic was moving, John and Dorian might just clock in before lunch. Jesus. Of course the day they picked for implementing Maldonado’s wallop of a counterpunch would turn into a God forsaken mess. As if the weather had ever cooperated once with John’s plans for the day.

So John battled and bitched his way through the clogged streets until the turn for the precinct **_**finally**_** came up.

Dorian suddenly smiled. “Rudy’s on the case.”

Translation: _he’s on site and in control._

John reminded himself that it was too soon to relax. “Any unexpected trouble?”

“None so far.”

With a cautious nod, John drawled, “So we’re good to go.”

“I’ll put in a call to Drone Operations. Request a flyover,” Dorian said by way of confirmation.

“Sounds like a plan.”

John snagged a prime parking space. Ignored the media drones buzzing overhead. Marched into the precinct. Ordered up another MX.

Dorian very kindly offered to refill John’s travel mug.

“No decaf.” That point was nonnegotiable.

Dorian snarked: “Can you even tell the difference, man?”

“You can bet on it.” John’s finger poked Dorian dead center in the chest. “And when I do, you will know it.”

Both of Dorian’s brows hitched upward with amusement and those smirking lips parted on a smart retort, but approaching MX footsteps waylaid further argument. Dorian headed for the coffee machine and John jogged down into the bullpen, shrugging out of his jacket like he was actually expecting to get some paperwork done. He draped it over the back of his workstation chair as if this were just another day. Ho hum.

Terminal powering up and work tablet on, John sucked in a breath and turned to face the MX. His most recent cop-blocker evidently wasn’t on shift yet, so he’d ended up with Unit 775.

“You,” he instructed it, “start going through the DRN-324 sighting reports. Cross reference with accessible police and public video feed to confirm. Let me know if you get any hits.”

At which point, the department would have an official record of it. Useful things, official records. For prosecuting.

Oh, yeah. They were locking the evidence in on this one.

Hernandez wandered over looking accomplished and ready to hit the streets.

“Early bird, huh?” John accused, already grouchy for being made to cool his heels while he put on a show of waiting for the drone images Dorian had requested but that could be a while because, in a word: backlog. John could feel his life trickling away.

“Skimped on some reports last night. Deadline is before the captain gets in.”

“Amen,” John praised, equally thankful for small miracles… and even better excuses for being in the right place at the right time.

John glimpsed Dorian’s return, steaming mug in hand, and it was literally the only thing keeping John from being eaten alive by impatience.

He opened his mouth to complain about what had taken so long -- **_**Weren’t you bragging just the other day about being on good terms with the coffee machine?**_** \-- when John’s phone chirped. Grumbling, he dug it out of his jacket pocket and glared at the message. It was from Rudy.

**_**\-- I find myself out and about. McQuaid’s for lunch?** _ **

As if John didn’t know exactly where Rudy was right now. But a meet at McQuaid’s -- that was their code for dealing with a DRN issue off the record. Given that lunch was hours away, the issue wasn’t urgent and John dared to assume everything was proceeding as anticipated. Still, it was cute that Rudy actually thought John would have time for lunch today. Of any kind.

John sent a quick warning: **_**Don’t expect a warm welcome. Drive safe.**_**

“Rudy?” Dorian murmured.

John nodded. “Yeah.” 

Turning to Dorian, Hernandez said, “Night shift unit called in. Requested a seven a.m. drive by at an elementary school. You coming with or am I swinging back around to pick you up after roll call?”

“I’ll come along.” He patted John’s shoulder. “You and your MX have got it all under control.”

John gave him an over-bright smile. “Yeah, sure. Just don’t complain when you miss the party.”

“Wouldn’t stop **_**you.”**_**

“Hey. There’s nothing that can.”

Dorian snorted. “I seem to recall--”

“Your commanding officer,” Hernandez sing-songed. “Still waiting!”

Dorian’s annoyed glower promised retaliation and John grinned at his retreating back. Yeah, they’d pick this back up later.

“MX,” John barked, refocusing. “Where’s the drone footage that Officer Dorian requested? I want it here on my screen.” He scooted his work tablet toward Unit 775 on a clatter.

“Understood. Confirming: drone on approach to location. Accessing active drone logs now. No visual on the suspect yet.”

John tried not to tense up as he leaned over the terminal and started digging in. If each tip had been written on actual paper, they would have formed a small mountain. It was torture of the worst kind to force himself to give each useless report a quick skim when he knew exactly which one he was interested in: the sighting by the fisherman.

John growled as six more tips popped up on his terminal’s notifications and John had just glanced through them, sorting each according to location, when his tablet screen flickered. He was patched into the drone network.

“Detective Kennex,” Unit 775 announced, “I have confirmed a DRN sighting. However, I am unable to verify that the DRN is DRN-324.”

But it was. When Dorian had told John that Rudy was on the case, he’d meant that Rudy had done his part and was handing off the baton to the rest of the team for Stage Two.

The drone footage clearly showed a running figure. A tirelessly sprinting male form. A DRN. There was no mistake. No way could a human move flesh-and-blood legs that fast and besides, there was the posture and form. Pretty much identical to Dorian’s. At least, that was what it looked like when John drew on the memory of his partner chasing down the van driven by Ethan Avery’s clones.

The MX blurted, “Detective Kennex, the drone operator would like to know if she should tag the individual for observation.”

**_**Time to go to work.** _ **

“Yes. Tag him.” John grabbed his jacket and work tablet. Nodded the MX toward the exit.

Seeing as how nothing had gone horribly wrong yet this morning, John decided to push his luck. As they crossed the atrium, John gestured with his tablet to the MX and said, “MX, assume the suspect’s destination is a public place with heavy morning traffic. Project possible routes.”

“Detective Kennex, I have insufficient data to accurately predict--”

“Save it for the cruiser.” Which was now in sight. John clarified, “All I want is roads that provide access to transportation hubs and major intersections. Get the picture?”

“Yes. I have incorporated those routes onto the drone imagery.”

The MX followed, stride crisp, as John spared a glance at his tablet screen and, sure enough, web-like lines stretched out from the DRN’s current position, shimmering with weighted probabilities. Four glowed brighter than the rest, lining up with bus stops and tram stations.

John grabbed for the driver’s side door handle. “Detective, would you like me to drive?”

“No. Show me the suspect’s progress.”

A small, red dot appeared in the midst of the forested county highway that the DRN was on. The tiny indicator barely moved at this scale, so John asked, “How long before he hits the first possible turn-off point?”

“At his current speed, seventeen minutes twenty--”

“Great. Let’s go. Get in.”

The MX obeyed and John fired up the engine.

“Advise on the fastest route to intercept the suspect,” John instructed, pulling out onto the street. He glared at the swarm of media drones reflected in the rearview mirror. They were locked on and in pursuit. Like bees. Wonderful.

“Data is insufficient to predict which route--”

 ** _ **Oh, for the love of--!**_** “Just get us in the general vicinity with access to as many of those routes as possible! Can you do **_**that?”**_**

Otherwise, what was the damn point of this whole show?

“Yes.” The MX quieted down, processing lights zigging and zagging. For all of ten seconds, John could focus solely on the satisfaction of having both hands on the wheel.

And then John’s phone chirped in his pocket. He ignored it as it trilled a second time. A third.

“Sir,” the MX said and John hoped it wasn’t about to try and get cute. “Shall I transfer the call to the cruiser system?”

“Identify the caller.”

“Doctor Rudy Lom.”

“Yeah,” John snarled, blowing through an intersection and zooming beneath a highway underpass. “Put him on.”

“Um, hi, John. This a bad time?”

“Kinda busy right now. Can it wait?”

“Oh, just--did Officer Dorian pass along the, er, footage he asked me to clean up?”

“Running with it now.”

“Oh? Oh! Right! Full steam ahead then. Be safe.”

Safe, yeah. John was the go-to guy for playing it safe. Sure. Absolutely.

“Detective, we are entering a school zone.”

“Yup. You’re scanning for pedestrians, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But my range is--”

“Useless. I got it. Update on suspect’s location,” John demanded as he forced himself to slow down.

“Maintaining course and speed on Lexerton Drive.”

John scowled in thought. “Lexerton intersect with any tram stations?”

“No. The road passes beneath the Red Line tracks.”

“Uh-huh. How long until the DRN reaches that point?”

“Twelve minutes--”

“Our ETA?”

“Thirteen minutes--”

John put on the speed, rocketing out of the school zone. “Advise on road and traffic conditions!”

“Turn right at Bardor.”

John did, glimpsing the flashing yellow lights of a roadwork crew up ahead, narrowly avoided.

As a long block stretched out ahead of them, the MX decided to make a contribution: “Detective, the standard EMP rifle has had very little success in stopping DRNs in the past. Turn left on this side street.”

“Uh-huh.” John made the turn. The tires squealed only a little bit. But the inertial drag was fun. Whoo hoo. He informed the MX, “We’re not using the rifle.”

“In that case, lethal force is recommended when--”

“No. We are absolutely not using lethal force, either.”

The end of the street rushed at them and John was forced to ease up on the gas in order to merge with traffic. Which was getting heavier by the minute. Even on side streets. Welcome to rush hour.

“Past incidents involving DRNs,” the MX recklessly blurted, “could not be resolved with traditional negotiation techniques.”

Asshole. John merged onto the city center bypass. “Been a while since we’ve had an incident with a DRN. Don’t assume anything from back then still applies now.” But he stepped on the gas all the same because, damn it, those DRNs had thrown themselves from bridges in the effort to end their own lives. Stepping in front of a train wasn’t all that far-fetched even if it was a bit of a stretch: catching the express could cause a derailing and endanger the passengers, something a DRN’s programming ought to have one hell of a problem with.

But John had never been all that inclined to bet the farm on an “ought to.”

“Next exit,” the MX advised. “Eastbound for Maidas Corner.”

John angled the cruiser over, almost cutting off the overpriced luxury car that had refused to cede to the siren.

“I must also point out that your experience as a negotiator is negligible and your skill may be insufficient to--”

“Shut up or get out.” Given what had happened to the last pushy MX to ride shotgun, it was a generous ultimatum.

The MX faced forward. “The suspect is now on J Street.”

Finally. A comment that was actually useful.

Just in time, too. John wrenched the wheel and the cruiser squealed onto J Street. Up ahead, the guard rails of the tracks loomed on either side of the asphalt against the backdrop of an overcast sky. A distant form was approaching at a full-on sprint from the opposite direction. One measly block away and getting closer. Closer. Closer.

John gunned the engine, roaring over the railway crossing with a jarring **_**thunk-thunk!**_**

The cruiser jostled up onto the curb, angling across the sidewalk, and John forced his fingers to let go of the steering wheel.

 ** _ **Ready or not, here we go.**_**


	19. Switch On/Off

Raindrops splattered on the windshield. John grabbed for the seat belt release as the sound of steady, running footsteps got louder.

**_**Showtime.** _ **

“Stay in the cruiser,” John ordered the MX, wrestling his way free of both steering wheel and seat belt.

Rain pitter-pattered on John’s head and shoulders as he leaned against the roof of the patrol car like he had all the time in the world. He called out pleasantly, “Nice day for a run.”

The DRN didn’t answer. In fact, John couldn’t even tell if the DRN was bothering to blink the droplets from his eyes. He leaped off of the sidewalk and into the street without missing a beat, dodging the obstacle in his path.

John crab-scuttled over to create another. “Police!” His hand came up. “Stop right there, pal.”

The android complied, face twisted with agony, and his gaze flicked past John’s right shoulder. He shifted restlessly, but didn’t speak. Mostly, he just looked frantic.

“I’m Detective Kennex. Tell me what’s going on with you, man,” John invited, ignoring the honking horn of a driver passing by, forced to swerve around their little scene. “I wanna help.”

“Sir. You must move aside. Please.”

John nodded toward the cruiser. “Hop in. We’ll give you a ride to wherever you need to go. Save your charge.”

“No time. No time. There’s -- it’s under the tr-track.”

“What’s under the track?”

“It’s--” The DRN startled. Something in the distance had caught his eye. Or maybe his ear. Something that put him into panic overdrive. “No time!”

The express, inbound from nearly a dozen of the newer and more distant suburban paradises, was racing toward the downtown city center. The railroad crossing lights started flashing. They had something like ninety seconds before the train, loaded with over-mortgaged middle-class passengers, blasted past.

“THERE IS A BOMB!” the DRN bellowed at John.

“A bomb. On the train?”

“Under the tracks. There.” He pointed to a spot only about two meters from where the asphalt crossed the rails.

John blinked. “There’s a bomb under the tracks?”

The guard rails lurched out of their upright position and descended.

“YES.” Again, the DRN tried to lunge past John.

John moved with him. “How do you know that? Did you put it there?”

“I--my memory files--I’m not sure. But it is there. I know it!”

“MX!” John belted out, gesturing for the thing to get out of the cruiser. As the door opened, John ordered, “Contact Red Line operations -- have them stop the train!”

The MX argued, “At the train’s current speed, it will not be able to--”

Fuck it. Growling, John pulled out his gun and aimed at the guard rail maintenance box. Squeezed off a round and the cheery **_**ping-ping-ping**_** of the warning bells switched to a shrill blare of alarm.

**_**Pretty sure the folks in operations got that message.** _ **

The DRN didn’t, though. He was pelting over to the tracks, looking for all the world like he was intending to pry the rails up with his bare hands.

The scary thing was that he could do it.

And if he did, yeah, he might keep the train from running over a buried bomb and setting off an explosion--

(How many square blocks would be devastated? And not just by the blast itself but by chunks of train crashing through homes and businesses and crunching idling cars flat in the streets…!)

\--but the people on the train, they’d be unavoidable collateral.

“HEY!” John roared. “WAIT! MX--” He turned back to his mandatory moron. “Scan underground here for explosive devices.”

As it did that, John ran after the DRN, who was actually not interested in peeling apart the tracks. (Thank God.) He was heading for the train itself in a head-on collision. (SONUVABITCH!)

John could hear the squeal of emergency brakes being applied by the engineer, shrill and Doppler-shifting into a range that made John’s ears want to curl up and hide under a couple of two-ton rocks, but there was no way that train could stop in the distance it had.

He roared at the DRN: “GET OUTTA THE WAY!”

“I’VE GOTTA STOP IT!”

“YOU’RE GONNA GET THOSE PEOPLE KILLED!”

“NO, I’M GOING TO SAVE AS MANY AS I CAN!”

Still standing at the crossing, the MX announced, “Detective, I cannot locate an explosive device in the vicinity!”

John shouted back over his shoulder, “HOW DEEP DID YOU SCAN?”

“My scanning range in this environment is one-point-five meters.”

“HEAR THAT?” John yelled as the DRN came to a halt on the tracks and braced himself, ready to bearhug the oncoming train. Christ. “NO BOMB!”

“IT’S THERE. I GOTTA TRY, MAN!”

And he was dead set on killing himself in the process. God damn it.

John stopped arguing. There was no time left. The train was ploughing forward and they’d be lucky if the emergency brakes didn’t lock up or stutter and send the whole monster skipping off the tracks.

The DRN put out both hands--

John pounded toward him, closing the distance--

A horn trumpeted--

Two more steps and then--

“Oomph!”

John was crashing into and tumbling two hundred pounds of android off of the raised tracks, smashing against him as they both hit the hard ground on the opposite side. The double impact made John’s teeth rattle and, hell, his bruises would have bruises.

**_**Son of a bitch!** _ **

“NO!” the DRN barked, shifting and rolling as the train screeched and rumbled past, and John found himself squashed on the jagged, rocky ground, shielded from the imminent blast.

God. Where most people would be stunned stupid by failure -- where they’d only be able to gawp uselessly as the nightmare played out in front of their faces -- the DRN immediately shifted his focus to saving the only life he could: John’s.

Damn androids.

Because no, John did not admire this DRN quirk. Didn’t want to and wasn’t going to. Applauding their stubbornly suicidal courage was not going to solve anything. It was only going to encourage them to risk themselves over and over again in order to be the hero-of-the-day, damn it.

And they were meant for more than that. DRNs were not bullet catchers. John had sent out the memo, but had anybody bothered to read it? Jesus, what the hell was John going to have to do in order to get the point across here?

But. First things first. Like--

“Where’s the bomb?” the DRN wondered aloud when one car after another squeaked over the very spot where the explosives had purportedly been buried and a whole lot of non-explosions happened.

John elbowed the android, which obligingly stopped squashing him into the ground. But with the loss of cover, the rain found John. A cool drizzle that was going to give him a headache from hell, he could tell already.

He let out a breath and answered the DRN’s question, frustrated and furious because--

“The simplest explanation is that there’s nothing there,” John told him.

“But I SAW--”

“Or,” John argued because he was good at that, “you were made to believe you did.”

“I don’t understand. It’s there.”

And where John took gold in Argumentative, DRNs took gold in Stubborn. “Then it’s a dud. C’mon.” He started climbing to his feet. His body throbbed where the rocky slope along the side of the tracks had jabbed his skin and tenderized his muscles. Ouch. The pain was everywhere, so he didn’t clock the hand under his arm helping him up until John was fully upright and the DRN was dropping his arm back to his side.

“Let’s get these people off the train. I’ll call in the bomb squad. We’ll sort it out.”

So that was what they did. In a steady rain that plastered John’s hair to his scalp and forehead and turned the collar of his jacket into a sopping mess. Oh, yeah, he was looking real photogenic today. Good thing he’d remembered to shave because this was what the entire city was watching thanks to the hovering media drones. They’d stalked John today hoping to catch him sneaking off to play kissy face with his fiancé. Instead, they’d caught him in the middle of a trainwreck.

That had to be some kind of metaphor for John’s life. Had to be.

He was practically holding his breath as he organized the evacuation of the train while the MX was directing traffic to reroute (which was pretty much the only actual police work the things were any good at). The people griped and scowled and snarled (“My boss is gonna kill me”) as John ordered them to clear the area.

 ** _ **Thanks for saving my life,**_** no one said.

Well, it wasn’t as if John had really expected any different.

At least it eventually stopped raining.

The bomb squad arrived, suited up, swept the area. They found a couple of old, squashed aluminum beer cans and a bunch of nothing else.

“There’s no bomb,” the team leader informed both John and the DRN that John had in custody.

“No bomb,” the DRN parroted, blank-faced with disbelief.

“No explosives detected. False alarm,” she reiterated and then turned around, heading back to where her team was packing it in.

The DRN looked to John. “I d-don’t understand, man.”

“I know you don’t. But I know a guy who’ll be able to clear it up for you. C’mon.” John ushered him around the rear of the idling train and toward the cruiser. As they approached the car, John’s phone chirped. He answered it.

“Now seems to be a good time,” Dorian said pleasantly in his ear.

John snorted. “Is it ever?” But at least the MXs were doing a decent job of keeping the media frenzy at bay, so John couldn’t complain about that. He could complain about being watched, though, but eh. He had more exciting things to talk to Dorian about than a rerun of his paranoia. “Hey, how’d it go on your end?”

“Two suspects in custody. The captain has already called dibs on interrogation--”

“Hey now! Didn’t you even try to--this was our sting, damn it!”

“According to official records, it’s the captain’s.” Dorian paused. “And yes, I did argue. Very persuasively.”

Not persuasively enough. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Don’t be ungrateful, John. Given who the perpetrators appear to be, it’s probably best that you’re not doing the interrogation.”

“Now you’ve really got me wondering.”

“Not difficult to do.”

John rolled his eyes at both Dorian and himself because he really ought to know better than to walk into a punchline like that. He opened his mouth--

“Don’t go anywhere,” Dorian interrupted just as John reached for the cruiser door handle. “Rudy’s coming to you. Two minutes out.”

“OK, OK. So you got time to give me the highlights. Whose castle did you and Hernandez storm with Maldonado?”

“Mendel Academy.”

“What.”

Dorian smirked. John could hear it. “See you back at the station.”

“Damn it,” John growled, shoving his phone back in his pocket and trying not to enjoy the thrill of suspense too much. Dorian really did know how to rev his engine. Annoying. Annoyingly sexy as hell, too.

Thank God for Rudy pulling up in his Tech Truck and providing a timely distraction from everything he did **_not_** know... yet. But it was only a matter of time, stomping, and scowling before John found out who the captain’s team had in custody.

“Ah, here he is!” the technician greeted the DRN who was still standing next to John beside the cruiser. “I’ve been watching your exploits. You’re quite the famous fellow let me tell you.” Looking beyond the DRN, Rudy said, “John, if you would accompany us? Chain of custody and whatnot.”

“Sure.” Why not.

He shadowed Rudy to the back of the truck where the scientist ushered the DRN within. “If you’ll just have a seat there?”

There was only one seat to be had. A black-eyed, deactivated DRN was sitting stiffly in the one beside it. Finally, John was looking at DRN-324.

“Just a moment,” Rudy mumbled slowly as he fiddled with commands on his tablet. “All will be clear, my friend…” Tap. Swipe. Tap-tap. “Right about **_**now.”**_**

The conscious DRN blinked once. Twice. He focused on Rudy and then John, frowning. “Did it work? It worked, d-didn’t it?”

John nodded for the android to check out his seatmate. When he did, he grinned. “Yes! I knew it would work.”

“Good job, Russel,” John told him.

“So you got the guy behind all this?” he pestered excitedly.

“I don’t, but Dorian does. Why don’t you hassle him for details?” John turned to Rudy. “The city owes you a beer and a steak dinner for that switcheroo.”

“I’d settle for an invite to the nuptials.”

Oh, hell. John should have seen that one coming.

“Ooh, can I have one, t-too?”

“Jesus,” John muttered. He spun around and bellowed: “MX!”

It obediently marched over and John made a herculean effort to push past the disgust. No matter how often the damn things might come in handy, John would never be able to view them as more than walking calculators. They were a waste, taking up space in the cruiser where Dorian could have been.

But when the bullets were flying and ceilings caving in and dumpsters raining down, yeah, OK. He’d settle for an MX. If it meant Dorian wasn’t in the path of those bullets, cave-ins, and dumpsters, yeah. Definitely.

He told Unit 775, “Drive the cruiser back to Delta Division. I’m riding with Rudy to preserve chain of custody and evidence.” He pointed to the DRN in the far seat, the deactivated one. The one that Rudy had somehow patched Russel into so that Russel could continue the act while Rudy traced the signal to its source, where Maldonado, Dorian, and Hernandez had pounced.

The MX didn’t ask why there was a second DRN in the vehicle. It simply scanned the android that John had gestured at, tagging the image with John’s ID.

Yeah. Great. The ol’ ball-and-evidence chain.

Remembering the party favors riding around in Rudy’s truck, John claimed shotgun with extreme reluctance. He was right to be wary: as Rudy bounced in behind the wheel, John pretended to ignore the light blue lacy underwear that was poking out from between the seat crease. Ugh.

Should he hope they were Val’s? Or from before her time?

Hell, maybe he should just assume they were Rudy’s.

“So, Doctor Lom,” John said as the truck made a U-turn and the navigation console instructed Rudy to turn left, away from the blocked railway crossing. “How come it didn’t work?”

“Hmm?”

“Y’know--” John cycled his hand through the air and prompted, “The part where either you or Russel or both would be in conscious control the whole time? Because that wasn’t Russel acting the part back there. I was dealing with a DRN in panic mode.”

Russel leaned forward. “Yes. You’re right. The commands I was intercepting c-completely overrode my normal processes. What was up with that, man?”

John tried to squash his smirk. Tucked it down into what he hoped looked vaguely disapproving. But it was fun watching Rudy sweating in the hot seat for once.

“That,” Rudy replied, following the additional navigation instructions with all the diligence of an infantryman, “is an excellent question. One I fully intend to, well, **_**fully**_** investigate once we get back to the lab.”

And if Rudy could prove that the DRN on the receiving end of those commands hadn’t been responsible for his own actions, then the real fun would begin: did they tell the world that DRNs could be hacked and turned into weapons of terror or did they slam a lid on this and hope nobody else got the bright idea to try it?

And could they convince the Red Line not to sue?

John sent off a text to Samantha to the effect of “Menace or good Samaritan?” She’d be all over it by the time the evening news aired. For sure.

Still, the conundrum remained: just how much information was too much? With an ongoing investigation, they’d be able to justify keeping the details hush-hush, but if or when this went to trial, a decision would have to be made.

Luckily, that was not John’s job. Unluckily, his future with Dorian might hinge on it.

“If you discover evidence of hacking or reprogramming, write that up separately,” the captain told Doctor Lom when they reported in at the precinct and, yup, they were going with option two. The fact that they were pow wowing in the privacy of her office was a big enough hint that John wasn’t surprised. In fact, he approved. In the short-term.

He muttered, “At least until we know how to plug the leak.” He nodded to his tablet, which was still in the captain’s hands. She’d just finished scanning the incident log.

She corrected him, “Until DRN-324 decides whether or not to press charges. Privacy issues, John.”

Who wouldn’t want to press charges for being brainwashed, wound up like a toy automaton, and unleashed? But Dorian probably wouldn’t. Hadn’t back when it was Nigel Vaughn doing the hacking. Probably couldn’t without endangering every DRN in existence. So John shut his mouth.

Didn’t make the situation any less unfair, though. He growled, “We’re gonna get these assholes.”

Her brows arched. She challenged: “Ignoring any evidence of reprogramming?”

He nodded. His job was about to get a whole lot more difficult, but if there was a charge to file, he’d find a way to make it stick: theft, purchasing stolen goods, abduction, whatever. So long as the DRNs didn’t end up the fall guys.

Rudy cleared his throat. “DRNs inherently trust whoever activates them unless security protocols are put in place beforehand. If this DRN was told by someone he trusted that there was a bomb about to go off, there’s a strong chance he’d believe it. Wouldn’t most of us if an authority figure said the same?”

The captain nodded. “Check the DRN’s memory logs. If you find anything that supports that, bring it to me and only me.”

And for the time being -- with what little information they actually had at this point -- that was the only call to be made.

“Well,” Rudy said with a glance across the bullpen toward the prone DRN that the MXs were waiting to wheel into the precint’s evidence scanner. Once the android was processed and logged, Rudy would be able to take DRN-324 back to his lab for analysis. “Looks like I’ve plans for the weekend, don’t I?”

What a coincidence. John had plans, too. “Where’s Dorian?”

Maldonado smirked. “Waiting on you. Interrogation. Cube 5.”

John held out his hand for his tablet, a toothy grin stretching his mouth wide.

She passed it over, tacitly giving him the green light, but then jerked it back just when John’s fingers would have closed on it. “His lawyer is present. Don’t give anyone an excuse.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d issued that exact warning. This time, John listened and listened good. “Scout’s honor.”

She relinquished the tablet.

“Mind if I pop my head in?” Rudy asked. “Give Dorian my congratulations in person?”

“Yes. I mind.” John marched away before Rudy could get huffy. But he still heard the man grumble: “I’d have thought having a suspect in custody would put him in a good mood.”

And Sandra’s reply: “It has.”

Yeah, she knew him pretty well. John was furious and loving every blood-pumping moment of it. And the detour down to evidence processing only gave him more time to simmer himself up into a fantastic boil. Oh, yeah, the asshole who had dared to try and demonize DRNs was going to get **_**blasted.**_**

John scowled his way through the procedure that officially identified the DRN and copied whatever needed to be copied and preserved in its original state. Then John signed off on it, shoving the digital tablet into Rudy’s hands and stalking out of the room without a word. Which he was saving up for the person on the other side of the fogged glass of cube five.

John pushed open the door and beamed.

“Well, well, well.” He sent Dorian a sidelong look which Dorian returned with amusement.

His fiancé boasted, “I thought you might be acquainted.”

“Indeed we are.” John turned his attention to the teenager seated on the other side of the table, his hands in restraints and his parent-slash-lawyer at his side. “Mister Smythe, imagine seeing you again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case it’s been a while since you’ve seen the TV show, the suspect is Marshall McCarty’s classmate from “Perception.” When Val and John are questioning Marshall about whether or not the students of Mendel Academy use recreational drugs, there’s another boy (with dark hair) in the vicinity who mouths the words “You wouldn’t understand” at John. That guy is the Smythes’ son here.


	20. Aspirin and Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Sexytimes!!

“I wasn’t acting alone,” the young Jerran Smythe boldly admitted and it was Dorian rather than John who laughed.

Right in that litttle shit’s face, too. John had never felt prouder of anyone in his life ever.

“Yes, Marshall McCarty. Captain Maldonado was the arresting officer.” Dorian wandered over to the control panel and unfogged the interrogation room’s glass walls. Across the way, Captain Maldonado was sitting down across from Marshall McCarty who was looking very smug and chatty. John glanced down at his tablet and well whaddaya know -- Sanda had opened her device to his. He was watching the recording transcript write itself out in real time.

Dorian mused, “And it looks like he’s giving us his full cooperation.”

“But this was all his idea!”

“Jerran, be quiet,” his mother and counsel ordered.

“You have that right,” Dorian allowed while John looked on with glee. “But the DRN you assaulted was in your family home when--”

“Assaulted! That’s ridiculous. It’s just a machine.”

John lifted a finger. “Not according to the law.”

“Laws change.”

“Not in time to let you off the hook, though,” John told him. He nodded Dorian toward the door. “Let’s see what Marshall has to say.”

Quite a lot, according to the information Maldonado had already gathered as evidence. Marshall was legally an adult and he’d waived the right to an attorney. Probably thought that he was going to talk himself out of prosecution, too.

John passed Dorian his tablet; his fiancé could read the whole transcript or listen to the entire recording compressed into mere seconds, so John leaned against the bullpen railing, rolled his shoulders, and considered the merits of another cup of coffee and a doughnut before lunch. Until Dorian stiffened and tugged on John’s sleeve, angling his head toward an empty conference room. John went, more curious than alarmed -- hell, he was just plain thrilled that Dorian wasn’t hesitating to ask for privacy. Something he had never done in the workplace (that John could recall).

But it turned out that the privacy wasn’t for Dorian. It was for John.

“Marshall McCarty has agreed to testify in exchange for immunity.”

John’s jaw clenched. He glared at the fogged glass wall, through which and just across the way, Maldonado was letting that little worm wriggle his way out of years of prison time and--

Dorian stepped into John’s path, preventing him from charging out into the bullpen and over to the other occupied interrogation cube and causing a major scene.

“Dorian--”

“I know, John.”

“That joker endangered lives today!”

“Yours included.” And hell yes Dorian was angry about that. He was furious.

And that, more than anything, shoved aside the fury just enough for John to pause and take a breath. He shook his head, bewildered. “Then what are we still doing in here?” What they should be doing is lodging a formal complaint.

“Marshall and Jerran are responsible for 324’s disappearance, that’s true. They activated him and intended to use him to cause a major catastrophe.”

“That makes them both kidnappers and terrorists.” He put a hand on Dorian’s arm, intending to walk around him if that was what it was going to take to get to the door.

“They did it to show up Jake Bellman.”

That halted John in his tracks. “What?”

Receiving John’s full attention now, Dorian said, “Marshall overhead his parents and Bellman discussing his intention to eliminate DRNs once and for all. Apparently, he has a five-year plan to wipe us from the public record.”

“And five years was too long for these little runts to wait.”

“It seems,” Dorian added somberly, “that Marshall and Jerran have a plan to usurp Jake Bellman as the spokesman of the Chromes.”

And now that their plan to show him up had flopped, they were happily turning on him.

“Marshall says he acquired DRN schematics when Jake Bellman consulted his father on how to alter the charger designs that Rudy sent to the manufacturer.”

“Circumstantial,” John scoffed.

“Marshall claims that with the schematics plus the discarded charger prototype, which can still be found in his father’s home workshop, Jerran Smythe was able to not only activate DRN-324 but convince him that there was a bomb planted under the tracks at J Street.”

Slightly mollified, John contrarily fought back: “Good luck getting a judge to approve a search and seizure.”

“The warrant has already been signed.” Dorian turned John’s tablet screen around obligingly, showing him the documentation. The lucky detective who’d been assigned the case would be able to turn the Smythes’ and Marshalls’ homes upside down and inside out. Plus the manufacturer’s facilities.

“Bellman’s not on here.”

“He will be,” Dorian vowed, expression hard. “You know how this works, John. One step at a time.”

He then reached out and tapped the room’s control panel. The glass cleared and John spotted Valerie standing up from her desk and reaching for her jacket. Huh. It looked like Val was already on it.

This time, when John nudged Dorian aside, the DRN let him pass. John jogged over, intercepting Val as she came up the steps, her MX just a pace behind. A rare bubble of no-one-else-around engulfed them.

“Hey,” John called quietly. “You OK?”

“You heard.”

“Just now. You got the warrant?”

She nodded.

“Want backup?”

She smiled a **_**real**_** smile. The first she’d given John in days. Which meant she’d gotten the cease-and-desist order from Sandra: Val could drop the act now. Not that it wouldn’t be damn useful for the department to have an insider in the Chrome community, but that person wasn’t going to be Val. John was probably almost as relieved as she was.

“No, but thanks.”

“Anytime,” John promised and, yes damn it, he was serious. Because as big of a fish as Jake Bellman was, there were a thousand ways he could still slip past their net. Or retaliate. And even capable, formidable cops hit brick walls every now and then. Chromes or no Chromes.

She looked amused. “Stop worrying. I know what I’m doing.”

And John had to admit that, when it came to handling Chromes, she was the expert.

He watched her go.

The captain emerged from the interrogation cube and headed right for John. “My office. Both of you,” she murmured and off they went. This was John’s second visit in one day. What were the odds.

“Tell me something I wanna hear,” John all but begged as the door closed behind them.

“You look good today. New jacket?”

He huffed. “Really? McCarty is walking?”

“Only if the prosecutor agrees to take on Jake Bellman.”

“Talk about a snake in the grass. Wait--you don’t look surprised.” Neither Sandra nor Val had, come to think of it.

“Detective Stahl and I discussed this possibility before she approached him about lobbying for community services on the other side of the Wall.” The captain’s mouth quirked into a wry smile. “The way she tells it, Jake Bellman almost convinced her that he was a proponent of following one’s heart… all while they were both sitting in the middle of his exclusive Chrome club.”

“Ballsy of him.”

Tilting her head, Maldonado recalled, “Those weren’t the words she used.”

“But you recruited him anyway.” There was only one reason John could think of to explain why: “It’s too bad he didn’t switch sides.”

“Hm. But some of the information he passed on through Val did pan out. Not a total loss.”

“Just a waste of humanity.”

“Bellman won’t go down without naming names.”

Dorian agreed: “Everyone who bought up and invested in those tech companies.”

The captain nodded. “A lot of powerful people are heading for a fall. And when they do, the ones riding on their coattails are going to end up face down in mud.”

People like Councilman Hart. And Billings. Among others.

Which was why Sandra Maldonado was taking credit for this bust. She was putting herself out there to protect her people from becoming blatant targets for retaliation.

John implored, “Tell me you’ve got a plan to keep your job.” Because if this went sideways… well, police captains had been forced into retirement for less.

“What can we do?” Dorian offered.

“Your jobs, gentlemen. That’s more than enough.”

As it so happened, that was all they had time for over the next ten days straight. Logging evidence and filing reports and all that irritating police work minutiae that kept John from really loving his job. Getting out on the streets with an MX in tow was actually starting to feel like a breath of fresh air away from pain-in-the-neck desk work.

But it was worth it. It was all worth it the day Captain Sandra Maldonado brought Jake Bellman in for questioning. The scumbag had all the right answers, of course. Most Chromes with a law degree did. But he was booked anyway. By Val.

“That,” John said, beaming at the update on his tablet, “is a thing of beauty.” He passed it over to Dorian who had just come off duty and was ready to catch a ride home with John.

Dorian accepted the tablet but didn’t have to look at it. With a touch of his fingertip to the screen, his lips quirked. “The judge denied bail.”

John rolled his shoulders and, with a slight shake of his head, complained, “I’m starting to believe in the inherent goodness of humanity.”

Dorian laughed. “So this is a red alert.”

“That’s what it’s looking like,” John agreed, grabbing his jacket off of the back of his chair. True, the prosecutor had shied away from anything that blatantly relied on DRN-324’s status as a legal person (and John had been incensed but unsurprised by that bombshell) and the Smythes had naturally refused to press charges against their own son for the theft of their belongings. But! The little asshole was facing a very serious charge of endangering lives and **_**that**_** was on top of a massive lawsuit from the Red Line Rail Company for loss of revenue and damage to company property. (Express trains hadn’t been designed to stop on a dime. Imagine that.)

“Any word from Rudy?” John asked as they headed out because that was the last piece in the puzzle: exactly how it had been possible for McCarty and Smythe to convince a DRN that there was a volatile explosive buried underneath the tracks. It wouldn’t necessarily alter the case against Jerran Smythe, but it was something all the DRNs were going to have to deal with.

“No. And I’m not going to interrupt his date night with Valerie just to ask him.”

“OK.” John pulled out his phone. “I can do that--hey!” he whined as his phone went dark in his hand. “This is you commandeering the cruiser all over again. Not cool, dude.”

“No, this is me being a friend. They haven’t seen each other in weeks, John. We can wait until tomorrow for an update.”

“You can wait,” John grumbled petulantly. “How can you wait? What if those twerps figured out how to hack DRNs? Seems kind of important.”

“It is, and I’ll be the first one Rudy calls. When he has something, I’ll know. Trust me.”

They got into the cruiser. John turned over the engine. Dorian ran his fingers through John’s hair.

“You’re cute when you worry about me.” 

“Worry--me? I’m not worrying.”

“Oh?”

“This isn’t worry.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s the warm-up act to flaming pissed off, that’s what this is.”

“If you say so.”

“It is.” He pulled out of the parking space. His natural tenacity had him circling back around to his earlier and unaddressed objection: “Why--just explain one thing to me. Why is it OK for Rudy to be out on a date while you could be in danger, huh?”

“I love you, too, John.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Dorian nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. Actions do speak louder than words.”

“Actions. Rudy’s butt behind the monitors in his lab is the kind of action that ought to be happening right now. That’s what I wanna see.”

Dorian smirked. “We’ll just see about that.”

And they did. On the plus side, John forgot all about being aggravated for a solid twenty minutes as he was laid out, tongued open, and fucked delirious, which made Dorian look very pleased with himself indeed. But John’s pounding heart and wheezing breath in the aftermath only clued him in to the fact that he was spending way too much time at his workstation in the bullpen and not nearly enough chasing down bad guys on the street. He was out of shape. After less than two weeks. Ridiculous.

Dorian’s too-warm brow lowered to John’s sweaty shoulder. “No,” he commanded at almost the precise moment John’s thoughts turned toward the O-Course, making his jaw clenched hard. “No, you are not allowed to feel anything less than fantastic right now.”

“Well, I would be if somebody would put their own safety first for once.” John squirmed a bit, just to feel the fullness and latent heat deep inside, between his trembling thighs. “You can, you know. And when you’re safe, I’m safe. Ever think of it that way?”

Dorian leaned up and pressed a kiss to John’s jaw. He lipped at an earlobe and rolled his hips.

John grunted, neck arching and spine tingling and this would teach him not to let himself go more than a week without release. God, everything ached and stung… in all the best ways.

“I do, John. I think about it all the time.” Another gentle roll from those lean-machine hips had John hissing in a breath and grabbing onto Dorian’s arms for leverage. Oh, damn, Dorian was getting hard again and John knew he was going to regret it tomorrow (and doubly regret it the day after tomorrow) but he just held on tighter, gritted his teeth and yes. Yes. Deep was good. So God damn good. Aw c’mon, yeah. Don’t stop don’t stop don’t you dare stop--

“I’m OK,” Dorian whispered, low and sensual against John’s pulse. “I’m OK so you can be, too. You’re OK, John. We’re OK--”

“Better--better than--oh God--OK,” John panted. “Way better.” God this felt good. It always felt so good. “So good, D…”

“We are,” Dorian agreed with a slow smile and a sparkle in his eyes. “We really are. I promise.”

And oh--oh--oh God that angle was both Heaven and Hell. John shuddered, his nipples hardening even though his dick was still out to lunch. But Dorian was in no hurry, massaging him gently and whispering in his ear: “Look at us, John. Just look and feel -- this is us. We’ve got this. I’ve got you. You’ve got me. C’mon, John, tell me how it feels. We feel good together, don’t we?”

“Ah--amazing,” John rasped, angling his hips higher and Dorian slid a hand beneath John’s prosthetic knee, hitching his right leg up and driving each thrust with unbelievable precision. With persuasion like that, his dick took a definite interest, hardening and leaking until waves of heat pulsed through his entire being, searing John on the inside of his skin in one lazy flush after another. He felt only the smallest dribble on his belly, but oh god. He was speechless. Mind blown.

“Dorian,” he groaned, groping at his lover’s shoulders and back, begging for just a moment more of connection.

“I’m thinking of taking your name.”

“My what--oh. Wait. Why?” He bantered back, “Maybe I should take yours, eh? John-0167. Has an interesting ring to it.”

“You won’t share your name with me?”

“Hey, you want it -- it’s yours. But only if it’s what you want, OK?”

Dorian snuggled closer, heated breaths pluming against John’s sternum and soft synthetic-skinned lips trailing over his collarbone. “I can’t change the fact that I’m a DRN -- and I wouldn’t if I could -- but nobody’s going to treat me like your husband if I still have a serial number.”

“Yeah. Yeah, OK. Excellent point.”

Dorian hummed. “I really enjoy this mellow side of you.”

“Jesus, D. It’s called ‘fucked out.’”

“No,” Dorian argued, smiling into John’s bleary eyes as exhaustion took hold. “‘Fucked out’ was you after round one. This here is what they call ‘shagged senseless.’”

“Rudy’s a bad influence on you,” John griped on a mumble. And then he was out. Down for the count. So it was possible that the phrase hadn’t made it past his lips intelligibly after all.

He opened his eyes at four a.m. because he was alone in bed. His leg was charging and his skin was clean. He was still naked, though, and grabbed for the clean pair of boxers and the tank top he’d started stocking in the beside bureau for occasions like this.

John got dressed and then he laid back, stared at the ceiling, listened to the muffled hum of Dorian’s charger in the trophy room. OK, so, what they had wasn’t perfect and maybe it never would be thanks to John’s PTSD and the fact that, whether he was a Kennex or not, Dorian was always going to be an android. John had spent the last year and then some so focused on keeping Dorian in the land of the living that he hadn’t really let himself think beyond the moment and into the future.

He’d agreed to marry an android, someone who would never be able to spend the whole night sharing a bed and then wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, someone who would never be able to share a meal and savor the flavors of food the way John could (and loved doing), someone who would never look a day over thirty-five even when John was pushing eighty (if he even made it that far). For the rest of his life, everyone -- people, strangers, coworkers -- would look at John and see some kind of brain-stunted, midlife-crisis-mired man who couldn’t deal with reality, with growing old, with death.

Well. Forget them then.

What John couldn’t deal with was silence where Dorian’s sass and banter ought to be in his life. So what if his soul mate had been assembled and programmed instead of conceived and birthed. So what if Dorian would never swap stories of childhood misadventures with John.

Dorian had once asked John if he believed that there was someone out there for everyone.

Even now, John felt no inclination to change his answer.

He rolled over, hugged Dorian’s pillow to his chest, and went back to sleep.

In the morning, he woke to kisses against his dragon tattoo and the aroma of fresh brewed coffee.

“Hey, sexy,” John croaked, ignoring the fact that he was probably at his least sexiest right now with sleep gumming up the corners of his eyes and a crust of drool in his morning beard. “Love you, D.”

When he reached out a hand, Dorian threaded their fingers together. “I know you do,” he replied with a charmed grin and then he maneuvered John’s hand so that he could drop a pair of aspirin into his palm.

Aspirin and a cup of coffee. If this was what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life, hell yeah he’d take it. No regrets.


	21. ...and Pilates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Sexytimes!!

Warrants went out. Arrests made, charges filed, and cases either closed or prepped for trial.

The precinct mole was eventually identified as a tech in the Cyber Division: Herbert Martinez. The very same Martinez who, according to Val and Paul, had once waged “war” on Detective Vogel over a reneged bet. Apparently, Martinez had figured out how Anna had locked him out of the system on the day he’d been abducted by InSyndicate and killed (on John’s watch no less) and then deleted the XRN case file. Martinez had sussed out how she’d done all of it undetected and, instead of reporting it, he’d held onto the information so he could make a little extra on the side, selling department intel to the highest bidder.

One of those bidders had been Jake Bellman.

As awful as crime was, John had to admit it was damn satisfying when a solid case came together. Just like now.

It was a beautiful day. Summer was just around the corner and the whole rotten core of the city’s power structure was strung out to dry in the sun. It didn’t get much better than this.

John asked Dorian, “How do you wanna celebrate, D?”

It was almost a hypothetical question -- the answer was blatantly obvious. Still, he wanted to hear Dorian say it.

“I was thinking… the beach,” he told John as they strode up the steps of Delta Division. “Sunday after next. I’ll send out the invitations.”

“Nobody from my high school days,” John reminded him.

Dorian quirked a brow. “Oh, but the stories they could tell…”

“Exactly.”

The wedding invites were RSVP’ed by lunchtime.

“You invited Samantha?” John scoffed around a mouthful of burrito. He scowled as a salsa-slippery dollop of refried beans plopped down into the wrapper. “She’s going to turn it into a circus -- just you watch.”

“No, she won’t. Our day is not a publicity stunt for the 494 Movement. She and Rieko are coming as our guests. They’ll behave themselves.”

“Yeah? I’ll believe that when I see it.”

But Val and Sandra and Paul would be there -- Hernandez and DT, too -- so there’d be plenty of cops handy to make arrests. Which was why John later sent his own note around: BYOH (bring your own handcuffs).

Surprisingly, the media didn’t catch on. Sure, John and Dorian (but mostly John) would still turn the street corner or step through a convenience store door and just about trip over a tabloid journalist every now and then. John itched to file restraining orders, but if there was one thing bottom feeders were good at it was keeping themselves out of hot water.

And Maldonado made no secret of loving the fact that the whole city was keeping an eye on John. “It’s been good for you,” she blithely approved. “Keeps you out of trouble.”

And that right there pretty much guaranteed that the new status quo had Dorian’s vote.

Even John couldn’t complain when, the Wednesday night before the big day, he and his MX du jour responded to a report of shots fired only to walk into an ambush. Media drones buzzed at the legally required distance, lenses zooming in to record John scuttling between piles of scrap that barely counted as cover while returning fire.

“Detective Kennex, I am unable to contact dispatch. The frequency is being jammed.”

Fantastic.

“Give me an infrared reading on the locations of the shooters!”

“No heat signatures detected.”

“Then what the hell are you good for anyway?”

“Echo location data indicates a shooter approaching at your eight o’clock.”

John spun, sighted, and shot.

A clatter and flash of flailing limbs as the perp dropped hard. “Secure suspect,” John ordered the MX and returned fire at his one o’clock.

Ammo was getting low and John had to fight the urge to look back over his shoulder at the media drones because shouldn’t someone have noticed the fact that his MX hadn’t called in a 10-33 yet? But then: sirens. Lots of sirens and flashing lights. Half a dozen patrol cars converged on the site and John heard Dorian shout, “POLICE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!”

It was over in less than ten seconds.

“Dude,” John said, shaking his head as Officer Dorian scanned him from head to toe. “You sure know how to make an entrance.”

“Well, as entertaining as it **_**wasn’t**_** to see you on prime time television fighting for your life--”

“Shut up. I’m trying to thank you, damn it.”

“And which word exactly would be the one that expresses gratitude?”

“God, you’re such a pain.”

Dorian opened his mouth, brows twitching together into a fierce scowl and--oh shit yeah. They were about to get into it right here at the scene of a shootout and on camera, too.

But then Dorian said, “You scared me.” He stepped into John’s space and wrapped his arms around him and--to hell with it. Dorian wasn’t the only one who had been scared shitless and why was John letting the adrenaline goad him into pushing Dorian away when this right here was all John really wanted in life?

“We’re still not even,” John protested, winding his arms tighter around Dorian’s waist.

Dorian sighed. His breath was too hot against John’s collar. Emotional overload. “I don’t do that anymore, John. I don’t have to.” He leaned back and said very quietly for John’s ears only: “I have you to live for.”

To hell with both of them still being on duty. Dorian was John’s fiancé and the whole planet knew it. He had every right to claim a kiss in public. So he did.

He palmed the side of Dorian’s face and pressed their lips together in a chaste meeting of mouths.

And since exactly none of the media was invited to the wedding ceremony, this was the only kiss they were gonna get. But it was fitting, in a way, that this be the moment on record because when hadn’t John and Dorian had to literally battle their way over and past and through one threat after another just to be together?

Metaphors. They were definitely a thing.

And later that night (or, more accurately) very early the next morning, when John exhaled against Dorian’s bare chest and teased his fingertips along Dorian’s hard cock and brushed his beard-stubbled chin over that spot just to the side of Dorian’s hardened nipple, John didn’t ask if Dorian was sure. John didn’t utter the words: **_**Do you really want to be married to a cop?**_**

But, somehow, Dorian heard him anyway. His fingers tangled in John’s hair and he pleaded for more, for everything, for John: “I want you. Yes, yes, yes--god, John. I want you.”

And John wanted to hear more of that smooth voice broken by the strength of Dorian’s emotions. So human. Because Dorian was special. So uniquely special.

“You’ve got me, D,” John vowed, tickling his lover’s hard length and causing blue-white lights to flash and sparkle and streak through synthetic skin. “I’m all yours.”

John had already come once with Dorian’s fingers slowly massaging his prostate, but with a show of wanton abandon like this laid out beneath him, well. Little wonder John was good to go for Round Two. And as Dorian glowed and gasped and writhed with pleasure, John straddled his hips and descended on that gorgeous cock. God, it felt bigger every time. The stretch and burn and then the deep throb of connection.

“J--John!” Dorian’s hands skimmed down to John’s thighs, prepared to ease away any oncoming cramp, but John’s pilates classes were starting to help in that department.

“I’m good, D. Just lemme ride you--hnngh Jesus…” If only he could hold onto this feeling forever. He panted hard, head tilted back and fingertips doodling against Dorian’s chest as they rocked together, connected and alive.

And when John came, it was to the feel of Dorian’s hands on his hips, pushing and pulling and rubbing him fast and hard along the length of his cock so deep-deep-deep and the tingling flush swept over him once, twice, and third time, his vision gone white and jaw slack and all he could do was surrender to Dorian and feel.

Human.

Very human because, when John finally opened his eyes and checked, Dorian was right there with him, drifting in the afterglow, riding the lingering heat.

“I’ll never get enough of this,” Dorian predicted as John slowly, slowly, slowly sat up, shivering at the feel of Dorian’s slick, soft cock sliding out.

He collapsed on the bed next to his lover with a grunt. “Good. Otherwise, I’d have no reason to show up for pilates.”

John could feel Dorian’s smile. It was like sunshine across his shoulders. “I’ve noticed an increase in core muscle. Pilates, hm? Just so you can enjoy this?”

Dorian’s fingers trailed up the inside of John’s thigh and Jesus Christ. John had never been this insatiable when it came to sex, but he couldn’t help shifting his legs open a bit more, inviting Dorian’s gentle explorations to continue. “Yeah,” he tried to snark, tried to make the word come out sounding like “well, duh” only it didn’t because Dorian was kissing his way down John’s spine and then licking at his tailbone and then--

“Ahhh-haah!” John squealed, burrowing his face into the nearest pillow and clutching hard. Dorian’s tongue was pure magic and John had no shame at all, opening up and begging for more-more-more until he was forced to concede: “I can’t--oh fuck fuck fuck--I can’t come again, D. I can’t, oh my God--oh!”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Hell no.” He wiggled and a hard cock bumped against his leg. “Fuck it in, D.”

“You’ll be sore on our wedding day.”

John groaned and nodded, rolled his hips in a silent show of begging, and then moaned as Dorian’s arm slid under John’s hips and angled him up to take it. And he took it all, every moment of it. Slick and hot and so damn good.

And when John’s lower back started to strain, Dorian rolled them onto their sides and spooned him nice and slow. John drifted in the feeling of being made love to as the sun rose. Gentle and sweet.

At some point, he fell asleep.

He woke to the scent of auto-timed, percolating coffee and a cock deep in his ass. “You need to charge,” John croaked.

“So does your leg.” Dorian’s fingers brushed over the joining of flesh and silicone. He waited for John to tell him OK. OK, let’s stop practicing for the honeymoon and be responsible.

John said, “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” and rolled his hips back against Dorian’s pelvis.

Dorian answered with a lazy thrust that hardened John’s nipples and cock. “I don’t mind. Know why, John?”

“Uh-nuh,” he managed, stretching and leaning back into that fantastic rhythm.

“Because I love how much you love this.”

“D…” John tried to protest.

“I can feel you. Your heat and pulse. Because of me. Because you want me. You want me this close to you. Making love to you feels good -- so good, John -- but this? I spend every minute of every day trying not to focus totally on this: us. Oh, God, John. Just let me love you.”

“Never,” John rasped as Dorian’s cock pressed against his prostate. “Never gonna doubt that you do.”

A long, slow, lazy lie-in later, John was biting and screaming into the pillow as Dorian pounded toward his own climax, dragging John along for the ride until he exploded across the sheets. Skin sizzling and veins bursting and Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Aspirin and pilates. He could only hope that they’d be enough.


	22. Beachy Nuptials

“Who’s standing up with you on Sunday, Kennex?” Paul blurted in the breakroom on Friday morning. It was the day after the day after and Thursday’s pilates class plus four aspirin with breakfast was so not enough to counter the aches and pains, so here John was orbiting the coffee machine because caffeine could fix anything. Or at least motivate John to stay mobile.

“Nobody,” he said, taking a sip of the peace offering that the coffee machine had belched out.

Paul stuck his empty mug under the spout and squinted at John. “You do know how weddings work, don’t you?”

Snorting, John rolled a shoulder in an irreverent shrug. “We’re not doing all that. Low-key.” He eyed Paul’s crisp dress shirt and pressed slacks. “Dare you to wear that to the beach.”

“How old are you -- twelve? Jesus.”

“Who’s twelve?” Gorson said, sauntering in to grab a sports drink from the vending machine.

And since Gorson had RSVP’ed for Sunday, John rolled his eyes and said, “I am forever young because -- why? Oh, right -- I’m not gonna have a best man at my wedding.”

Gorson paused. “Yeah? Uh, what about a ring?”

“Dorian’s a DRN. Metal is a no-go in the charger.”

“Vows?”

John’s lips squashed into a thoughtful moue. “Just like interrogation, right?”

“Aw, shit,” Gorson opined.

Paul agreed. “Yeah, this is gonna be a train wreck.”

“Is not,” John asserted. “Dorian won’t let that happen.”

“Right.” Paul snorted with a sudden thought: “Because you’re just gonna do whatever he tells you to do -- as usual, right?”

“How about this, Paul -- we could use a pinata. You wanna volunteer yourself for that?”

Gorson smirked. “Who’s bringing the whacking stick and ponchos?”

John’s phone buzzed. Maldonado was giving him a case. The timing was too perfect, though. He suspected she’d added it to his assignment list because she was watching them right now. Eyes like a hawk, that woman, and there were cameras **_**everywhere.**_**

As if he needed a reason not to tie the knot in the bullpen.

So, beach it was.

But John didn’t get married with sand between his toes. Technically, the getting-married part happened in the slightly stuffy, recycled air within city hall while he was wearing shoes and a scowl because you’d think, on this day of all days, that bureaucracy would grind just a little faster. Before couples changed their mind about filing joint tax returns.

So John huffed and fidgeted with his phone while Dorian smiled pleasantly at the half dozen other would-be-weds who had shown up to tie the knot on their Friday lunch break.

“I want to ask you about your new case,” Dorian murmured in disappointment and John’s lips quirked. Yeah, this wasn’t exactly the place. So he put his phone away and reached out to take Dorian’s hand. Laced their fingers together.

“You’re not having a ceremony?” a middle-aged woman asked Dorian when they eventually made eye contact. “I’d have thought you would’ve.”

Dorian patiently explained, “We considered it, but we’re not getting married for the android rights movement; we’re able to get married because of it.”

John grunted out an agreement.

The woman nodded. “That’s why it’s gonna last -- you two -- you’re gonna make it.”

“Gotta get married first,” John grumped and checked his watch, comparing the time to what was shown on the wall clock. “Glaciers melt faster than this.”

“There is data to support that,” Dorian concurred.

“You--what, you looked it up just now?”

“I’m off duty.” Which meant Dorian wasn’t contributing his processing power to cross-checking new evidence with outstanding cases and the like. “And you’re too nervous to talk to me. What else am I supposed to do to kill time?”

“Nervous? Nervous. I’m not nervous, damn it.”

“You look nervous.”

“I’m impatient.”

“That, too.”

“You’ve got no baseline for being able to tell if I’m nervous. Know why? Because I don’t get nervous. Ever.”

Dorian bit his lip around a charmed smile. “It’ll be fine. Even people who aren’t citizens are legally entitled to get married. They won’t turn us away.”

“Uh-huh. That means they’re making us wait so they can call the press.”

A man on John’s right chuckled. “Naw, it’s always like this. They give us a standard forty minutes -- rethinking time, y’know?”

John’s eyes narrowed. It made sense. They gave suspects some alone time in interrogation cubes so they could examine their life choices. John glanced at Dorian, who was looking amused, and then reaffirmed his grip on his fiancé’s hand.

One by one, the couples were called up to the counter to sign their respective marriage licenses. More couples trickled in after John and Dorian, keeping the waiting area occupied and preventing John from pacing.

“John Kennex and Dorian-0167?”

As John and Dorian approached, gazes followed them and John realized they hadn’t really done away with the whole pomp and circumstance of the ceremony: this here was it. But worse. Because it was the whole waiting-at-the-altar bit and the damn walking-down-the-aisle drag. Both John and Dorian were playing the part of bride and groom.

The hell.

But as badly as John just wanted to sign his name and get both of them outta this damn place, he paused and, to Dorian, suggested, “What if I hyphenate?”

That made Dorian giggle. “John Kennex-0167?”

“Uh, yeah.” He hitched his brows in prompting. “Too much?”

Dorian paused and considered it. For five very long seconds as the registrar looked from John to Dorian and back again.

The slow curve of Dorian’s mouth gave John his answer, but he said it out loud anyway: “Not too much. Maybe just enough.”

John signed: John Reginald Kennex-0167.

Dorian signed: Dorian Kennex-0167.

“Congratulations, gentlemen,” the registrar said, filing the license with a push of a button and sending digital copies to the contact addresses they’d provided: John’s phone buzzed in his pocket with an update to his personal account; a sparkle of white lights illuminated Dorian’s cheek. “Best of luck to you both.” The registrar paused and then, leaning forward, murmured, “There’s a service exit around the corner to the right. Past the zoning offices.”

“Thanks,” John said and meant it.

They had to swing by the citizen registry and the DMV to update their official IDs and by then John’s extra-long lunch break was over. Dorian passed him an energy bar as they waited for the tram and John was content. Not because of the food (energy bars barely qualified, in John’s opinion) or because it had come from Dorian (his **_**husband**_** Dorian) but because Dorian hadn’t argued -- hadn’t made John **_**insist**_** on waiting with him. They were married now and John had the right to see his spouse off if he wanted to. And yes damn it, he wanted to.

“Need a hand with anything?” John asked awkwardly. “You know. For Sunday?”

Dorian’s brows lifted. “You’ve got a case.”

“Well, yeah, when don’t I?” When that didn’t impress Dorian, John huffed and tried again. “I mean, I wanna do more than just show up.”

“You will. But not until Sunday morning. We’re good until then.”

John rubbed his husband’s shoulder. “We’re gonna be good for a lot longer than that.”

Dorian pressed a kiss to his cheek.

The tram zoomed up to the stop. Dorian got on and headed out to his apartment to enjoy the rest of his day off. And maybe savor the last bit of peace and single-man’s quiet. Russel was back at school. James was re-employed at the assisted living center. Goku was at Mid City Floral. Forney and Samantha were at the Wall in Precinct 12, waiting to welcome another three DRNs back into civilization. John would be seeing them soon.

For now, it was back to work.

He growled and bullied his way through the remainder of the day. He made arrests on Saturday morning and booked perpetrators before quitting time. One case closed, a bunch still open.

Not the least of which was just how concerned John ought to be about Dorian being hacked or brainwashed. He couldn’t stop thinking about DRN-324 and the mission he’d been sent out on.

John saw his opportunity for answers on Sunday. Val and Rudy were the first to show up (with the barbecue gear) and as Dorian helped Val set things up, John meandered over to Rudy on the excuse of tossing him the bottle of sunscreen.

“Read your testimony. DRN-324 wasn’t hacked.” But it wasn’t like Rudy had never lied for the greater good before.

“Ah, no. No, he wasn’t. But his moral judgment was deprioritized. Standard procedure for a lot of DRN and DRN-based interface platforms when ownership was transferred to a private company or citizen. Confidentiality protocols, you understand. He believed the threat was real, but was unable to contact the police.”

“Didn’t stop Forney back when Wonda witnessed the shooting at Billings’ house. Or the android that called in the assault on the captain’s.”

“Right, well, that was one thing those little prats did do to 324’s programming: they locked him out of the DRN network. The DRN had no option but to deal with the problem himself; a lone android doesn’t have the same resources as those who share a network.”

“I’m not reassured, Doctor Lom.”

Rudy clapped him on the shoulder. “This is the world we’ve built. For better or worse.”

John glanced helplessly toward his husband. “So long as that’s not going to happen to Dorian. That whole… brainwashing business.”

“No. That will never happen to Dorian. His programming was designed to evolve. I suppose you could say that, at this point, he’s set in his ways. Or, on his way. It’s more of an issue of vectored velocity, really--”

“Good. That’s good.” John smiled in his husband’s direction. “At this point, it’s too late for a do-over anyway.”

John’s phone chirped. When Dorian winked, John rolled his eyes and dug the thing out of this pocket. Dorian had turned it on and sent him a message:

**_**\--Being late never stopped you from trying.** _ **

“Hey,” John retorted, not bothering to raise his voice because even at this distance, Dorian would hear him over the gush of the surf and the clatter of a grill being readied, “I don’t just try, pal -- I succeed.”

Dorian laughed out loud, nodding, and Val looked up. Her lips moved as she demanded to be let in on it.

That was what today was all about: letting all the nosey assholes in their lives in on the fact that John and Dorian had a life with one another.

Hernandez showed up with an ice cooler of drinks. So did DT and his wife. Paul brought barbecue sauce, ketchup, mustard, relish, and bibs. “This one’s for you, Kennex,” he said, displaying a baby bib for all to see.

John smirked. “Aw, that’s so cute. You sharing your personal favorite and all.”

Sandra brought the meat. Maya brought the vegetables. Jeannie and Michael brought the plates and servingware and garbage bags and wet wipes. Samantha and Rieko brought the DRNs. They’d rented a van. A nine-seater.

All that combined with the special order of wedding cupcakes that Dorian and John had picked up at the bakery on their way out meant that they were good to go.

They talked and ate. The humans reapplied sunscreen and/or held onto hats. And then Dorian announced that it was time to build sandcastles.

John doled out sandcastle molds from the back seat of the cruiser. The set that Rudy had given Dorian for Christmas John passed into his husband’s hands.

“You’re wearing the same cargo pants as last time,” Dorian noted.

John rolled his chin on a lazy nod. “They’ve still got sand in the pockets.” He rolled his T-shirt sleeves up to his shoulders and started digging with the plastic trowel.

Midway through the early stages of construction, Sandra started tapping her own trowel against a partially filled sandcastle mold. Paul joined in (God, what a suck-up) and then John and Dorian were sitting in the middle of a chorus. It wasn’t exactly the old spoon-tapping-on-the-glass tradition but they got their point across.

John leaned over their sandcastle real estate and kissed Dorian. So what if there were media drones hovering. The whole city knew he and Dorian had tied the knot on Friday (public record and all) and Samantha had already lauded John’s decision to hyphenate their names to all and sundry. John wasn’t just allowed to kiss his husband -- it was expected, damn it.

“Speech!” Val hollered.

“VOWS!” Goroson insisted.

“HANDCUFFS!” DT belted out and everyone laughed.

And then silence settled. The wind breezed by and the sun shone down and the sea rolled in and out.

John said, “The first time we came out here, it was cold. Cloudly. Gloomy weather. No sunset to speak of.”

Dorian tilted his head to the side in agreement.

“The second time,” John continued, “you’d already asked me to marry you. It was warmer. Not so cloudy. Still, the sunset could’ve been better.”

Dorian -- hell, everyone -- waited for the punchline.

“I remember thinking ‘persistence makes perfect,’ and now--” He glanced toward the horizon. It’d been a clear day and the sun was on its way down, path free of clouds. “It’s gonna be great.”

Smiling, Dorian reached out a sandy hand for John’s. He drew a breath and answered slowly, “I remember the story you told about falling through the ice when you were fishing with your father as a kid.”

John’s brows lifted because he figured he knew where this was going.

“And as awful as it was, you knew you weren’t alone. Your father pulled you out and you knew everything would be OK.”

OK, so maybe John didn’t know exactly where this was going.

“Being decommissioned -- being deactivated -- was the most terrifying experience of my life. Wishing -- hoping -- that there would be someone there to wake me up again. And there was. You.”

There was a chorus of “awws” -- from Maya and Jeannie and Michael in particular.

But Dorian wasn’t done. “I told myself that was enough. Just being here -- awake and working as a cop -- was enough. I was city property -- I wasn’t allowed to want more.”

John’s grip tightened on Dorian’s fingers because this here was approaching dangerous territory.

“DRNs -- we’re programmed to evolve, and I am. I have been. I can see that in hindsight.”

A burble of panic coasted up, tightening John’s throat, but he told himself to wait. Because he and Dorian had already had this conversation. Well, sort of. They’d had the one about how John had treated Dorian like a person -- like a human police rookie -- long before he legally should have.

Dorian ruefully admitted, “But sometimes, I feel like I’m in over my head.”

Ah, OK. Very OK. John beamed in anticipation of the ending.

“But I know I’m going to be OK because you’re here -- right here, like you have been since the moment I woke up again -- and I’ve married a man who doesn’t know how to quit.”

John nodded Dorian in closer. Close enough for a quick kiss, a rub of noses, and a touch of brows.

“Dorian’s got you beat, Kennex,” Paul judged. “Hands down that was a better vow.”

“They were both pretty good,” Sandra insisted.

“Well, they’re not quite done,” John retorted, belaying Rudy and Val’s rush to replenish beverages and make a toast. “Because, D, we left out something pretty important.”

“What’s that, John?”

“You’ve made me human again. When I was a lost cause -- you’re not the only one who doesn’t give up. It used to be your job, I know. But it’s not anymore. It’s a choice. You didn’t have to choose me -- marry me -- but you did.”

“John.” It was almost a scolding. “I love you.”

And what could John say except the truth: “I love you, Dorian. For the rest of however long we’ve got, it’s me and you.”

“Gimme your hand, man,” Dorian urged and John chuckled at his husband’s proud grin as he slid a gold ring on John’s sandy finger to the sound of applause and wolf whistles.

 ** _ **“Two cops from the scrap heap,”**_** Paul had once sneered. But it turned out that those two broken and discarded beings had figured out a way to heal and keep each other.

 ** _ **“Because he’s special -- just like you,”**_** Sandra had promised, but John wasn’t going to damn her for being right. He was going to be thankful. And. He was going to be the best husband ever. Definitely. Guaranteed.


	23. Dream Team

John and Dorian didn’t rush off to go on their honeymoon. They couldn’t: Dorian was still slogging through his six months of probationary employment and on-the-job training. He wouldn’t be eligible for any significant amount of vacation time until at least four months into his official assignment. Wherever that was gonna be.

So they were in no hurry to finish their sandcastle. Rudy insisted on making a contest out of it. Paul won because he’d had the bright idea to partner himself up with Goku “the Artiste.”

The food and drinks ran out at dusk. Everybody left (and took the filled garbage bags and dirty grill with them and, in the process, reminded John why he bothered to have friends) so that it was just John and Dorian sitting in the sand, facing the western horizon, shoulders pressed together.

After they watched the sunset (and it was a really great one -- finally), they drove home. Back to the apartment on the lake. John sent a notice to the rental agency, updating his name on the lease and officially adding Dorian’s.

They washed off the sand. Made love in the bed sheets. John dozed under a full moon until he fell asleep. Dorian woke him up by strumming a familiar chord on a guitar.

It was a beautiful day outside. Sunny and clear again. The water glittered and twinkled.

John sat up and accepted the leg that Dorian passed him. Rudy had managed to repair the one that had saved John’s life. It was good to have it back. Not just because it was a gift from Dorian (and, to John’s twisted psyche, an extension of Dorian himself) but because Dorian’s memories were still in there, still broadcasting, still making Dorian smile.

As he slid his leg into place, John mused, “Been thinking of investing in some shades. For the windows.”

Dorian’s chin twitched to the side. “But the view.” Clearly, he was remembering yesterday. The beach. The vows. The story of when John had fallen through the ice. Dorian murmured, “The water…”

 ** _ **“I live on the water because it reminds me that I’m not alone,”**_** John had once told Dorian. Yeah, he remembered. He patted the bed next to him and Dorian sat. Their elbows bumped.

“Yeah,” John said. He sidled and snuggled up to Dorian. Wrapped an arm around his husband’s shoulders and pressed his lips to a smooth temple. Then he leaned back and, looking into Dorian’s luminous eyes, explained, “Don’t need it to remind me that I’m not alone. Not anymore.”

So they ordered window shades online and spent their day off together indoors. Clothes optional.

There was a big wedding a couple of months later: Michael and Jeannie tied the knot. Dorian stood up as his best man because, as Michael put it, “You saved Jeannie’s life. Not that I don’t appreciate what you did for me, Detective Kennex, but I could have survived prison. But if I’d never met Jeannie…” He’d shaken his head.

John hadn’t made him finish the sentence. He’d flicked Dorian’s ear playfully, “Looks like I’ll get to see you in a tux after all.”

Shortly after that, Forney got to watch Philip’s summer school play. (He’d gotten the lead in a spin-off of Doctor Dolittle. “It got rave reviews,” Forney proudly touted to John and Dorian, forefinger lifted and glowing, ready to plug into the nearest monitor to share his personal recording.) Forney and Philip had gone out for ice cream afterwards. It made the evening news. Just a short blurb and ten seconds of drone footage. Making sure the people of the city still remembered all that hullabaloo. Guaranteeing that they still cared about rights for DRNs.

Samantha stuck with the 494 movement. (No surprise there.) And ended up making more work for Rudy (who had found a reputable manufacturer and an honest investor for his tech business). But now that the functioning DRNs were all squared away with safe, reliable, **_**affordable**_** chargers, it was time to think about the ones who had been forcibly deactivated during the city-wide panic. Eventually, the city agreed to a staggered reactivation schedule.

The problem John had foreseen with DRNs not being able to afford their own upkeep and maintenance didn’t go away, but their success on the other side of the Wall prompted the national government to step in and recruit DRNs for service there. Charging and maintenance and repairs included with their term of commitment. The standard recruitment package required them to serve six months out of the year.

Which was why, as soon as Dorian was officially finished with his probationary employment, he and John asked to be reassigned on the other side of the Wall. Together.

Sandra didn’t ask if they were sure. She said, “Good. Lieutenant Morris needs people she can count on to keep things going in her absence.”

Because it wasn’t classified as a war zone anymore, so the soldiers and officers and DRNs who were gainfully employed by the government were allowed days off, vacations, sick leave. John wasn’t all that eager to give up his home with Dorian here in civilization, not without a promised return date to look forward to, but he and Dorian had discussed it -- many times over the past few months -- and decided it was worth it if they got to team up and work together again. Besides, someone who knew a thing or two about DRNs needed to keep an eye on those basketcases.

“Fifteen days in, five days out,” Maldonado told both John and Dorian.

Dorian answered, “We can do that, Captain.”

And they did.

They buttoned up their apartments, packed their bags, and rotated through the gate. In the half year since their previous assignment had ended, a lot had changed. On the surface, at least. Several logistics stations had been built above-ground extending all the way down to the tunnel system with access points at varying depths. Morris had turned them into education centers and trade hubs. There was even a work-for-rations program that offered food, medicine, clothing, water purification filters and the like to volunteers. John was mildly impressed to see so many people participating.

Morris explained, “People here don’t have to join a gang just to get by.”

John nodded as Dorian noted, “Incidents of gang violence have been steadily decreasing.”

“They’re still not close enough to zero for my liking.”

“We need the community leaders to work with us,” John said.

“Cagey bunch,” Morris complained.

John shrugged. “Let D and I see what we can come up with.” Gangs weren’t good for anyone -- not when their first order of business was to dispossess a prospering community in order to establish defensible territory and guarantee resources. If the government had any common ground with the anarchists who were industriously building up their little homestead Utopias, then it was this: once a gang got their foot in the door, it was Hobsian Hell from here to Christmas.

As soon as John and Dorian settled in at one of the newly built hubs (and what a pleasant surprise it was for John to see his old memory foam mattress -- apparently, Morris wasn’t a fan of extreme comfort), they signed themselves up for the next patrol.

“Kennex,” Marjorie drawled upon sight of him. “You’re still alive.”

John grinned. “I knew you’d miss me. Didn’t I say she’d miss me?” he prompted Dorian, who rolled his eyes, amused and tolerant.

“What d’ya want?” she snarled, arms akimbo.

John snarled right back. “World peace would be nice. How about it, Marjorie? You gonna help us squeeze out the gangs once and for all so your kids’ve got a shot at the good life?”

“You’re just gonna take their place.”

Suspicion. John could respect that. Hell, he knew she was mostly right. “Maybe so. But we aren’t going away. So if you like waking up to the sound of gunfire on your turf, by all means, be as difficult as you want.”

John knew that what he and Dorian had signed up for was going to end up being a damn long and hard row to hoe. They weren’t the only ones: when they rotated back out to civilization, Val suggested they see if any universities might be interested in conducting tech exchanges.

“From what I saw, the people on the other side of the Wall have come up with some pretty inventive ways to get by.”

It was worth a shot. A couple of graduate programs in agricultural tech tentatively agreed to try -- with DRN support, of course.

Marjorie was resistant, naturally. Because John was 100% sure that was her default setting to everything. “Oh, c’mon. You’ll get the chance to convert fresh-faced idealists and impressionable, bright minds. How can you say no to that?”

In the end, she didn’t. The university only lost a couple of students to their new “calling” on the other side of the Wall. The academic papers on the grand social experiment Marjorie’s community was attempting gained international attention for the school. It was as much of a win-win as was possible this side of a silver screen and Hollywood budget.

Some politician somewhere invented an honor (the Key to the Gate) and nominated John and Dorian as recipients.

“No,” John said. He didn’t even have to think about refusing. He wasn’t busting his ass over here to keep the Wall where it was, damn it. Like hell he was accepting an award that tacitly normalized the damn thing. Dorian gave his husband a sly smile. “I already replied for us.”

“Yeah?” John arched his brows, not in curiosity but in anticipation of one helluva punchline. “What’d you say?”

“I told them to fuck off.”

“I love you.” More and more every day because Dorian evolved more and more every day.

Dorian argued, “You love that I say what I think.”

“Hell, D. Once upon a time, you wouldn’t have even thought it.”

“Not in those exact words, no.”

And when Dorian pressed his brow to John’s, John closed his eyes on a smile. So what if he was going gray and the aches and pains were multiplying like rabbits. So what if Dorian’s regular maintenance check-ins and check-ups were becoming more and more frequent as Rudy struggled to keep him from slowing down too much. So what if they were growing old together.

Actually, scratch that. Growing old together -- that was the whole point, and John was damn fortunate to be along for the ride.

“Joel and Josh have been looking kinda down,” John murmured, speaking of two of their newest, enlisted DRNs. “Whatdaya say we go annoy them into talking about their feelings?”

Dorian chuckled. “You are one of a kind, John Kennex-0167.”

“Your fault,” John told him.

Dorian smirked. “You blame me for the sweetest things.”

John laughed. Kissed his husband. Tapped his hip and nodded for Dorian to accompany him for a little therapy enforcement.

They found the DRNs they were looking for in the storeroom, taking inventory and doing a fantastic job of looking miserable. Dorian paused on the threshold and reached out to curl a hand around John’s arm. “There’s been an interesting development in local weather patterns… if you’re interested in a report later?”

“From you? Always,” he retorted with a cheeky wink. He brushed past Dorian, his hand squeezing at the DRN’s waist as he stomped into the room and blustered, “Well. What the hell’s eating you two? Out with it. We don’t have all day.”

John bit back a grin because he knew Dorian was looking skyward with an air of abject suffering. So what if John was good at being an ass. It wasn’t his fault that it worked on the new guys. Nine times out of ten.

“Has it been two weeks already?” Paul complained when Dorian and John next tromped through the bullpen.

Dorian paused and John drew up short because oh hell yeah he wanted to hear this. “Detective Paul, please don’t shake my faith in your ability to count.”

John couldn’t help it; he guffawed up at the ceiling. 

Paul scowled. “Funny.”

“I assume it was your intention to make a joke just now,” Dorian added and Val snickered behind the confidential celo she was supposedly reading.

“Sure. I’m a comedian.” Paul rolled his eyes.

Val lowered the celo. “How are things over there?”

“Good,” John insisted and Dorian further elaborated, “And getting better every day.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to get worse,” Paul grumbled. “But I don’t doubt you could find a way to manage it, Kennex.”

“You only say that ‘cause I’ve got a talent for raining on your parade.”

“Detective Kennex? Officer Dorian?”

“It’s Kennex-0167,” John grumbled at the eager puppy reception he was getting from a probationary officer he’d never laid eyes on before. God, had John ever been that young? No. They were letting children join the force these days. Clearly, he’d skipped reading too many memos.

Dorian said, “That’s us. What can we do for you?”

“Oh! Oh, um, nothing really it’s just… see, my little sister is studying robotics in school right now and, uh, you’re both mentioned in one of her textbooks.”

John covered his face with both hands and scrubbed. He’d wake up from this nightmare any minute now…

“Which textbook?” Dorian asked because of course he **_**would.**_**

The probie looked flustered and Paul butted in with “The one that tells everybody what **_**not**_** to do.”

Dorian’s brows arched.

Paul jibed, “I still can’t believe this moron--” He jerked his chin toward John. “--was your only available choice.”

“It takes one to know one, eh, Paul?” John retorted. He patted Dorian’s lower back. “C’mon. Captain’s expecting us.”

“I was keeping an eye on the time,” Dorian reminded him as they escaped up to the walkway.

“And I was tired of having my eyes on Paul.” A tiny grin tugged at John’s mouth. “Nice comeback, by the way.”

“The fact that you encourage this kind of behavior makes you a bad influence on me.”

“Excellent. Fantastic. Best news I’ve heard all day.” He rapped on the captain’s door and, when she waved them through, he held it open for Dorian.

“Good to see you both,” Sandra told them. “Things on the other side of the Wall are looking good. Stable. You do excellent work.” But then she negated that praise by pointing them toward the sitting area corner of her office. The **_**Let**_** ** _ **’s Sit Down And Talk**_** zone.

**_**Oh, no.** _ **

“Have a seat, gentlemen.”

Whatever she had to say, it was gonna be bad. Bad with a capital B. “You’re not about to tell us that you’re retiring, are you?” It was John’s worst fear. Well, one of them. Top five.

“No,” she replied, aiming her somber gaze at Dorian. As she perched on the edge of her chair, the captain quietly announced, “Nigel Vaughn has asked to speak with you. DHS has approved the visit.”

John scoffed. “What -- is he on his deathbed or something?”

Sandra gave him a look and, in that moment of silent reprimand, John realized that he’d just stuck his foot in his mouth. Again.

Dorian’s head bowed. John rubbed his shoulder. Instead of apologizing, he murmured, “You don’t have to agree to this. You don’t owe him anything.”

“Does that mean you won’t go with me?”

“What! Of course I’ll go. Hell, I’m all for inviting Rudy along. The more the merrier.” Because what if Vaughn was planning to pull a fast one? This being his last shot at immortalizing himself and all.

Dorian drew a deep breath, giving himself space to be objective. “Can I think it over?”

“Let me know by nine a.m. tomorrow.”

With a nod, he promised, “I’ll do that.”

The drive back to the apartment was silent, not because Dorian was too busy thinking -- John was pretty sure he’d already made up his mind about whether or not to go have a sit-down with his creator -- but because Dorian was reconciling himself to the decision.

In the middle of doing the dishes (God who’d have thought that this particular chore would ever be a joy, but it was, because of the miracle of hot, running water and citrus-scented soap bubbles), John felt a nudge as Dorian crowded him against the sink. Pressing his cheek to John’s upper arm right above his locator chip, Dorian mused, “You already know what I’m going to do. How come you haven’t said anything, man?”

“Because I’ll hate it either way.” And that was true. If Dorian decided to go, John would argue that it wasn’t safe. Whereas if Dorian decided not to go, John would be driven to point out the fact that closure was thing you couldn’t buy, retail or otherwise.

“Hm. I’m not going.”

John let out a long breath. He lifted a sudsy hand and gripped Dorian’s fingers hard. “Want me to go?”

“Only if you take Rudy with you.”

John squirmed around in his husband’s embrace, herding them both in even closer. Lips brushing a flawless cheekbone, John vowed, “Done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Chapter 18 of A Light That Never Goes Out, John fantasizes about Dorian being able to tease and heckle his co-workers like an equal in the bullpen and now it finally happens here. (^_^)


	24. Compass

The DHS interview room was as charming as ever. John sat and waited for the holo projector to turn on.

Rudy glared at his own seat until John gave him a look and he plopped down with a huff.

“Sorry to be wasting your valuable time, Mister Inventor,” John snarked. “What is this -- date night with Val?”

“We had a lovely evening out yesterday, actually,” the man retorted before his jaw set with frustration. “But yes, truth be told, this is a waste of time.”

“I sure hope that’s not what you’re gonna tell Dorian about this little visit.” Dorian was currently at his apartment -- the two-room brick palace -- waiting for a sit rep that wouldn’t be happening until all was said and done and John was picking him up to take him home.

John hadn’t asked Dorian why he declined to wait in the DHS lobby: being this close to a live feed would be too tempting. Too easy to rationalize the risk. Too easy to hack his way in and end up on a very prestigious Most Wanted list. Several, maybe.

So when Dorian had said, “I want to spend some time with your housewarming present,” John had driven him over, walked him up to his door, and given him both a kiss and a promise to see him soon. Rudy had already been pacing in the DHS lobby when John had arrived with a bright smile for Miss Wallace at reception.

And now here they both were, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the monkey to push the button.

John resisted the urge to check his watch (no less than ten dozen times) before the warning light finally started blinking, signaling an incoming transmission.

Rudy straightened up as John slouched back and then, lo and behold, they were looking at Nigel Vaughn. He’d shrunk with age. His fluffy white hair had thinned. His beady little eyes were obscured by wrinkles on top of wrinkles and the thick lenses of his bifocals. He blinked once at his visitors. A very long second later -- too long for it to be a natural reflex -- the man’s shoulder’s drooped with disappointment.

“Doctor Lom. Detective Kennex. What a surprise.”

“Isn’t it,” John amiably agreed. “I thought we’d seen the last of you.”

“Hm. How is Dorian?”

“He’s great. He’s alive. He’s happy.” And even that much information was more than Vaughn deserved to know.

“I’m so glad all that unpleasantness from a few years ago -- the mass deactivations -- has been sorted out.”

“I’m sure.”

An awkward pause followed. John didn’t fidget. Neither did Vaughn.

Rudy blurted, “Well, we’re here. Just like you no doubt expected.”

Vaughn’s lips twitched. “Yes, you did ride to Dorina’s rescue before.” His brows tilted and he chided John, “It wounds me that you think so little of me. I never would have harmed Dorian.”

“Passive neglect,” Rudy retorted, “is still abuse, Doctor Vaughn.”

“I am guilty of that; it’s true. And not just in Dorian’s case--”

More like in the case of every DRN he’d ever created.

“--there’s a favor,” Vaughn dared to utter, “that I must ask. Not for my sake, but for a DRN’s.”

John prompted: “Uh-huh…?”

Now Vaughn squirmed, and that was fun to watch. “Well, when I was on the other side of the wall, I refurbished a DRN. As far as I know, he’s still there. Would you maybe be able to find him for me? Bring him home?”

“What’s his name?”

“Alfred. After Bruce Wayne’s butler.”

Right. Because Vaughn fancied himself a crime fighting mastermind with a cave full of toys.

John mused, “Any reason you’ve waited this long to send out a posse for him?”

Rudy scoffed. “You didn’t honestly think you’d be released -- that you’d be able to retrieve him yourself.”

It wasn’t a question because this wasn’t an interrogation. Hell, it wasn’t even a conversation. It was a script. Nothing more, nothing less.

Vaughn ignored the question and his own accountability: “Alfred deserves the opportunity to live a full life. Will you find him? Bring him back to the city?”

“What makes you think he can’t live full life on the other side of the Wall?” John quizzed, just to be difficult.

“He’ll recognize you, Detective Kennex. I’ve told him about Dorian’s partner. He’ll--”

“They’ve met, actually,” Rudy blurted.

“Have you?” Vaughn glanced at John, who did a pretty fantastic job of not stealing Rudy’s thunder.

“Yes. In fact, he’s been ‘home’ with me for some time now. And before you pretend any fatherly concern, you ought to know, he’s been immobilized and isolated.”

Vaughn’s entire face twisted into a snarl. Years’ worth of resentment eking out. “You of all people should know the harm that can cause!”

“Yes. Which was why I put him out of his misery several months ago. The alterations you made to his emotional regulators and bonding protocols were systemic. Irreversible.”

Vaughn exhaled and, to John, said with no small amount of satisfaction, “He did try to kill you.”

“On your orders?”

The dying man smugly retorted, “That’s the beauty of it, detective: I never had to give one.”

Right. That was Vaughn’s M.O. -- let the tech do all the heavy lifting.

His white brows twitched with puzzlement. “Why did he fail?”

The question was purely academic. It made John sick to his stomach. It made him want to round up some InSyndicate assholes and start loosening up their molars. It made him want to wipe this bastard from Dorian’s memories once and for all.

Rudy answered: “Dorian. Dorian stopped him.”

“He’s been a good partner to you, Detective.”

 ** _ **The best,**_** John didn’t say because Vaughn had no right to give himself credit for that. “And this is you punishing him for that. You’d sent me on a collision course with your homicidal DRN -- you’d kill me -- to get back at Dorian for choosing to live for himself instead of for you.”

“He should have chosen me!” Vaughn squealed. “I created him! He owes his existence to me!”

“No,” John flatly refused. “He got shut off and you didn’t do a damn thing to fight for him. He owes you exactly nothing.” John stood up. “Anything else you wanna get off your chest while we’re here? This show’s not gonna have reruns.”

Vaughn sat back. John didn’t think for a moment that the man believed himself defeated. He didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Quietly, he said, “Would you tell Dorian something for me?”

Rudy opened his mouth to object, but John beat him to the punch: “Sure. Why not.”

“Tell him I’m proud of him.”

Of all the passive aggressive bullshit.

Furious, John strode toward the door. It hadn’t even been five minutes, but they were done here. John was done. Done wasting his time on this tech-head with a God complex. He turned to ask Rudy if the man wanted a few minutes to talk shop with Vaughn, but the skittering hiccup of Rudy’s chair dancing along the floor was answer enough.

They left without bothering to say goodbye. It was the kind of jerk move that John was known for. Rudy -- not so much.

“Not even a friendly send-off, eh?” John muttered as they stomped past the sliding doors of the DHS lobby entrance and headed for their vehicles.

“None are deserved in his case. I would pity him for his blindness -- he has no genuine appreciation -- no reverence for what he created in the DRNs. I’ve nothing to say to anyone so narrow-minded and petty.”

Which reminded John: “Hey -- don’t tell Dorian.”

“Right. You either. Why’d you promise to pass along Vaughn’s message? Though it’s unlikely to be some kind of activation phrase--”

“I know, I know.” John put up a hand and clarified: “What I promised to do was give Dorian a message on Vaughn’s behalf and that I will do.”

“I see. Am I to be included in this little fiction?”

“Nah. Won’t matter.” Because John was positive that Dorian would see through it. John was looking at it like it was some sort of challenge: how long would it take Dorian to zero in on John’s little white lies?

Rudy’s brows arched. He was either impressed by John’s determination or shocked by his stupidity. “Well. When Dorian refuses to accept your apology for that, you can tell him this good news: Vanessa’s being woken up tomorrow.”

“Vanessa?”

“Yes. The sexbot. From that Albanian consortium case? The IRC with organic skin?”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember.”

In reply to John’s frown, Rudy explained, “One of my interns -- truly a bright and enlightened mind -- has not only figured out how to integrate her systems with bio-printed skin, but she’s reprogrammed her.”

“To do what?”

“We’ve a trial run arranged at Saint Mary’s Hospital for her to act as a companion to the patients. The eventual aim is to bring her into the victims’ advocate program as a sympathetic ear.”

“Getting victims to open up to police, you mean?”

With a rueful grin, Rudy mused, “You and your colleagues can be a bit abrasive, Detective.”

“Pfft. We’re abrasive like a mountain of steel wool.” And proud of it.

Rudy paused beside the tech truck. “What **_**will**_** you tell Dorian?” John didn’t answer right away and Rudy pressed, “When he asks -- and you know he will. He will ask. About Vaughn.”

John sucked in a deep, cleansing breath. “I’ll tell him that the day Dorian walked into Vaughn’s workshop was the worst moment of his life--”

Rudy’s jaw dropped and John held up a finger to forestall any objections.

“--because, that day, Vaughn realized what he’d become: the enemy. He’d turned his back on the DRNs right along with the rest of the world. It’s his biggest regret.”

Glancing down and fumbling in his pockets, Rudy sniffled. “That’s good. It’s even true. Even the bit about regret.” His eyes were wet when he looked up. “But you’re right; Dorian’s gonna see right through it.”

“Yeah?”

“I give it no more than two seconds.”

“You’re on.” John slapped Rudy’s shoulder in farewell and then he got behind the wheel.

Seventeen minutes later, as John was stopped at a red light and Dorian asked (because of course he couldn’t wait until they got home), John repeated what he’d rehearsed with Rudy. He made an effort to sound affected. Even added some hesitations like he was trying to remember the exact words.

Dorian was quiet for one second. Two. Three. The light turned green and John tried not to gloat. He’d text Rudy later.

“Oh, John.” Dorian shook his head on a sigh. He was smiling, but it was one of the sad ones. Not John’s favorite. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you shouldn’t lie for someone like him.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“No, damn it, I’m lying for you. Because you deserve an apology. He owes you that much.” Hell, the whole planet did.

Silence. After a block, John glanced over. Dorian was watching him with a thoughtful wrinkle pinching his forehead. “Don’t wanna be owed, man. I just wanna… be. I just wanna be.”

“You are. Hell, you’re in textbooks now. Immortalized in print,” John drawled, droll and dry, rolling his head in a slow, patronizing nod. “And you dragged me into it with you.”

Dorian flicked his ear, shocking a puff of incredulity out of John. “You love it.”

OK, so maybe he did kind of love it. The attention. The validation. It was nice to know he’d finally done something right after so many wrong turns and missteps. But more than that, it meant Dorian was going to be remembered. People would care about who he was because that was the way history worked and now John’s android partner was a part of that. He was a part of modern society. Dorian was valued because he existed.

John palmed the back of Dorian’s neck and gave the synthetic muscles a firm squeeze. “Can’t fool you.”

Dorian grinned that gamine smile of his. “The fact that you keep trying -- it’s cute.”

“Cute? What--no. Don’t. Don’t call me cute.”

“Adorable.”

“No. No.”

“Precious.”

“Ugh.”

“Darling -- sweet -- endearing--”

“Will you--what is this, your thesaurus program stuck in some kinda loop?”

“Winning.”

“You--well. OK. I am that one.” Definitely that one. After everything he’d risked -- after all the sacrifices -- John could stand up and say that yes, he had won. In a word: Dorian.

And Dorian knew him so well: “Both of us are.”

He threaded his fingers through John’s and they lapsed into silence. Home was waiting. Three more days of civilization and then it was back to work.

John smiled. One hand on the wheel and the other in Dorian’s. He, literally, could not think of a single thing beyond this moment that he’d want to ask for.

“Guess what,” Dorian said suddenly.

John played along: “What.”

“Goku just sent me photo of himself and Maya. On a date.”

“A date. When did all that happen?”

“Let’s ask them--”

John grumbled, “They’re trying to take our spot in the textbooks -- just you watch. That’s what’s really going on here.”

Dorian ignored him. “They want to know if we’d like to join them and double up.”

John paused and gave it a think. “Where they at?”

“Light blading in the bay.”

“Light blading. Yippee.”

“It’s just like skiing--”

“It is not. It’s nothing like skiing--”

“Which you’re no good at, so don’t worry, I’ll catch you when you start to topple over--”

“Topple. I don’t topple. I’ll top you--”

“From time to time, yes, you do,” Dorian agreed brightly and then barreled on: “The course will be closed for the summer after tonight.”

John sighed. Hard.

“Think of it as a warm-up to…”

John lifted their joined hands and put up a finger in warning. “If you say the horizontal hokey pokey--”

Dorian’s chin jerked forward as he punchlined with understated panache: “To old age in a wheelchair.”

The grumble was practically a reflex: “I’ll wheel your chair.”

But. Damn it. With a shake of his head, John relented. Just like always. Hell, that was probably why Dorian kept him around: if there was one person in the world that Dorian could talk into anything, it was John. “OK. Fine. Tell me where we’re going.”

Dorian beamed. “Don’t I always?”

“Yeah,” John agreed, chest tightening with no small amount of gratitude. “Yeah, you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is done!
> 
> Sure, there are things that I wanted to include but somehow just could not find the room for, but yeah. This is my Almost Human headcanon... pretty much complete. (I would have liked to see Val dealing with more Chrome issues, McGinnis being hella awesome, and the Recollectionist working for InSyndicate (willingly or not) but oh well.)
> 
> If you have a moment, I would love to hear what you have enjoyed most about this series. And, like, a kudo would super dooper make my day. *hugs* (^_^)

**Author's Note:**

> Beyond _Archive Of Our Own,_ you can find me on Dreamwidth @ manniness.dreamwidth.org (^_^)


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